


AT THE FRONT 
IN A FLIVVER 

WILLIAM YORKE STEVENSON 





Class JT^^ 

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COPYRIGHT DEPGSffi 



AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 




LIEUT. MARQUIS ROBERT DE KERSAUSON DE PENNENDREFF 

Commanding Section Sanitaire Am^ricaine N°. 1 



AT THE FRONT IN 
A FLIVVER 



BY 

WILLIAM YORKE STEVENSON 

Section No. 1, American Ambulance 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

<$bz fttoer#t>e pre?$ Cambridge 

1917 






COPYRIGHT, I917, BY WILLIAM YORKE STEVENSON 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published September IQ17 



OCT -8 1917 

©C;,A473906 



PREFACE 

In presenting the following diary to 
the public, a few words of introduction 
may not seem superfluous. The writer is 
a young American who usually is not given 
to self-expression, although a number of 
articles from his pen have been published 
in various magazines, and a book of early 
sporting experiences was published by Al- 
temus, some years ago, under the title Joys 
of Sports. On March 1, 1916, he left his 
family and his position as financial editor 
on a Philadelphia newspaper, because he 
felt strongly this country's attitude with 
regard to the war, and wished to join the 
few volunteers who then sought, as far 
as in their power lay, to pay the debt of 
service which this nation owed to France. 
He kept a rough diary which, as the occa- 
sion offered, he forwarded to his people. 
It was written offhand, without the re- 
motest idea of its publication. It is this 
that constitutes its value at this time. 



vi PREFACE 

Any one who has made it his business to 
read every book hitherto published by cor- 
respondents and others will realize how 
few there are in which can be found so 
many practical details of the things one 
wants to know, or which give so realistic 
a view of the war at close range, with its 
strange mixture of horrors, pleasures, and 
realities, divested of all literary effort or 
desire to impress. 

These notes are here published almost as 
jotted down at odd times, here and there, 
where the man happened to be. Only a few 
entries felt to be unprintable have been 
omitted, and a few expletives which slipped 
in when under a fever of excitement in 
action. 

Taken as a whole, the diary offers a 
glimpse of real life at the Front — quite 
different from the view obtained by the 
personally conducted visitor — as lived 
by the men who are doing duty. As such, 
it may be of use to our young men about 
to enter upon the great adventure. The 
reader will find in it no heroics, no attempt 
at a pose, no desire to magnify the work 



PREFACE vii 

or its dangers. It is but fair, therefore, 
to supplement the young man's simple 
statement of facts, by publishing, along 
with the diary, a letter written to a 
member of his family by Mr. John H. 
McFadden, Jr., who, in charge of the De- 
partment of Equipment of the American 
Ambulance Field Service, visited his Sec- 
tion in September last, at a time when 
the strain of work was probably not at 
its worst, and yet was described by him 
as follows: — 

September 9, 1916. 

My dear Mrs. S.: — 

I have just returned from a visit to Section 
No. 1, where Yorke is, and although he prob- 
ably has written to you describing his work, he 
also probably has omitted a good deal, owing 
to the fact of his being a member of the Sec- 
tion. After seeing the extraordinary work 
that those boys are doing up there, I felt that 
I would like to write to you and tell you all 
about it. 

A good many of the Sections are now living 
under canvas and have often found difficulty 
in finding a suitable place to cook. So that we 
have had built a kitchen on two wheels which 



viii PREFACE 

is pulled along by a big two-ton White truck 
used for sitting cases, and the real reason of 
my visit was to leave one with Section No. 1. 
As it happens, they are situated at the present 
moment in a splendid chateau (the Chateau 
de Billemont) about four kilometers outside 
of Verdun. Up to a few weeks ago it was the 
headquarters of some French officers, but the 
Germans, having got hold of the fact, shelled 
them out, so that it has made an ideal place 
for our men. 

The "poste de secours" to which they are 
attached is six kilometers the other side of 
Verdun; and since ten days before my arrival, 
and during my stay, the French have been 
doing incessant attacking and counter-attack- 
ing, and the work of carrying the wounded 
has been practically continuous night and day. 

On going to the "poste de secours" from 
the chateau, you pass through Verdun and 
continue on a wide, level road for about one 
kilometer, and then you start up a very steep 
hill, which continues right to the "poste de 
secours," for five kilometers. This road is 
very narrow and sufficiently dangerous from a 
driving point of view apart from the fact that 
it is shelled continuously day and night. In 
fact, the duty of Townsend, Section Director, 
is to go out every morning at daybreak with a 
couple of men and fill up the holes which have 



PREFACE ix 

been made during the hours of darkness, so 
that our cars will not fall into them. 

The "poste" itself is only one hundred and 
fifty yards from Fort St. Michel, which, of 
course, accounts for the attention which that 
part of the country gets from the German ar- 
tillery. Besides this, the whole valley and hill- 
sides are covered with French batteries, and 
the din at the top of the hill makes it impos- 
sible to talk in anything like an ordinary voice. 

The day driving is comparatively nothing. 
The fact that every car has been hit has made 
no impression whatsoever on the men. I do 
not mean to say by this that they are in the 
least bit reckless or foolhardy — on the con- 
trary, they take all possible precautions; but 
when there is anything to be done, it is car- 
ried out without question. 

The part, however, for which they de- 
serve all the praise that we can give them, 
is for their driving at night. Naturally, no 
lights are allowed, and I have never seen a 
country that can produce darker nights than 
that district. You can try and imagine start- 
ing from the top of that hill with a car full 
of wounded, driving down a narrow hillside 
road in a blackness impenetrable for more 
than a yard. If it were not for the light given 
by the firing of the guns and hand-grenades, 
the work would be well-nigh impossible. 



x PREFACE 

What makes it more difficult still is, that it 
is at night that all the traffic starts and the 
ammunition is brought up to the various bat- 
teries, and continually you are finding a team of 
horses almost on the top of* the car before you 
have any idea of their presence. The round 
trip from the "poste de secours" to the hos- 
pital takes from two hours and a half to three 
hours, which averages a speed of about ten 
kilometers an hour. This will give you an idea 
how slowly one has to go. 

As I said in the beginning, this Section had 
been doing this work for ten days before I got 
there, and yet there was not the slightest sign 
of fatigue or impatience. I doubt if any man 
in the Section during that time had had five 
hours' consecutive sleep. But far from shirking 
what they had to do, they were each and every 
one of them attempting more than their share. 
One night, for example, the Medecin Chef 
who had charge of the "poste/' received word 
to prepare for an unusual number of wounded 
on account of an expected attack, and fear- 
ing that Section No. 1 might not be able to 
handle the situation alone, he called out a 
French Section which was in Verdun as 
reserve. I can assure you that no deeper in- 
sult could have been offered to poor Towns- 
end, and every man in the Section worked 
double time that night. Needless to say the 



PREFACE xi 

French Section stayed where it was — "In 
reserve." The idea that any situation was too 
big for them to handle was something not to 
be thought of. 

No matter how carefully a man drives at 
night, a number of accidents are bound to oc- 
cur. In one night, there were six. Of course, 
these are minor accidents and the damage 
can be repaired in a fairly short time. For 
instance, the White Camion one night went 
into a ditch; two cars went head-on into each 
other in the darkness ; two more cars went into 
ditches, and another fell into a shell hole. 

Occasionally, of course, something occurs 
which will put a car out of commission for 
three or four days, and that means that the 
Section is that much short. If this sort of 
thing happens too often, the authorities get 
impatient and threaten to replace the incom- 
plete Section by a complete one — which, of 
course, almost breaks the hearts of our fel- 
lows; and it occurs to me that it would be a 
splendid thing if we could have one or two 
cars in reserve for each Section, to prevent 
this contingency ever happening. 

Just briefly, I have tried as nearly as pos- 
sible to give you an exact picture of the work 
that Yorke and the rest of the fellows in Sec- 
tion No. 1 are doing. Without exaggeration, 
and without any idea of blood-curdling stories, 



xii PREFACE 

it really impressed me as so tremendously 
fine, that I did not feel that we were giving 
them all the praise they deserve. 

I hope you have not found this letter too 
long and will not think that I am bothering 
you too much, but nothing that I can say can 
give you an idea of how splendid those boys 
are, and I cannot help feeling that nothing 
should be left untried to give them all the as- 
sistance in our power. 

Hoping that you are well, I remain 
Very sincerely yours, 

Jack McFadden. 

For service even more exposing than 
that described by Mr. McFadden, ren- 
dered on the 11th of July, 1916, on the 
occasion of the gas attack in the battle for 
Souville-Tavannes, the entire Section 1 
had already been cited before the Division 
of the Second Army to which it was at- 
tached. A second citation was given the 
Section for the work referred to in Mr. 
McFadden' s letter, which was the battle 
for Fleury, when again the entire Section 
so distinguished itself. This time, how- 
ever, it was cited before the Army. Along 
with these official citations some wonder- 



PREFACE xiii 

ful letters were addressed to Lieutenant 
de Kersauson de Pennendreff by the sur- 
geons in charge of the "poste de secours" 
and those who were in charge of the San- 
itary Service to which the Section was 
attached. Since then, the newspapers have 
reported a third citation for the Section; 
and recently, when Hon. A. Piatt An- 
drew, for his distinguished service to 
France, was awarded the Cross of the 
Legion of Honor, he chose to receive it 
with Section 1, because it is the oldest 
of the American Sections, and because he 
drove with it before he became the head 
of the American Ambulance Field Service. 
General Ragueneau, of General Ni- 
velle's Staff, performed the ceremony, 
which took place in the fine courtyard 
of a splendid sixteenth-century chateau, 
in which Section 1 was then quartered. 
Troops formed three sides of a square, and 
the " ambulanciers " the fourth. Fate was 
propitious, and the weather was the only 
sunny weather they had enjoyed since 
the winter had set in. The big guns were 
loudly booming, and German aviators 



xiv PREFACE 

were dropping bombs on the village just 
outside the chateau, also in the river near 
their dining-tent : quite a glorious staging 
for a scene of this kind. 

After the ceremony, Major Andrew, as 
he is now called, presented the Section 
with a section flag of blue silk, edged with 
gold fringe, with the American eagle in the 
center. In the top corner is pinned the 
Croix de Guerre, with the two stars, which 
mean that the Section has been twice 
cited before the Army. A,s a fact, now, it 
should be three stars, as recently it has 
received a third citation, which, for the 
present, again places Section 1 at the head 
of all the American Sections, a proud posi- 
tion which it occupied last autumn with 
two citations. Later, however, Section 8 
caught up to it. But to return to the flag 
bestowed upon it by Major Andrew: in 
the other corners are inscribed the names 
of the battles in which the Section has fig- 
ured : Ypres, Dunkerque, Somme, Verdun, 
Argonne, Aisne, and so on : a proud record, 
to be sure. 

After the customary ceremony, the Gen- 



PREFACE xv 

eral advanced toward the young drivers, 
who were introduced to him by name, and 
whose hands he shook. He afterwards 
invited some of the older men to join 
him and the Staff in a glass of wine. He 
made them a most complimentary speech, 
which ended a pleasant as well as most 
honorable experience. 

Having come back to this country on 
furlough to spend Christmas at home, 
Mr. Stevenson returned to France on 
March 4, 1917, and upon arrival in Paris 
found that his Lieutenant, the Marquis 
Robert de Kersauson de Pennendreff, had 
kept his place for him in the Section; 
he at once, therefore, returned to Verdun 
to join his squad. Section 1 shortly after- 
wards was transferred to Champagne and 
the Aisne where the heaviest fighting of 
the war was then expected to take place. 
Since then that expectation bids fair to 
be realized. 

Mr. McFadden recently returned to 
France after a most successful money- 
raising campaign in this country, through 
which the American " Ambulanciers," who 



xvi PREFACE 

for nearly three years have been keeping 
up the honor of this country on the fight- 
ing line, will be provided with proper cars 
and equipment. They deserve it well. 
And Hon. A. Piatt Andrew, Henry D. 
Sleeper, of Boston, who represents the work 
in this country, and Mr. John H. McFad- 
den, of Philadelphia, should be congrat- 
ulated upon the splendid support which 
they have obtained for those remarkable 
American volunteer boys. 

One can but regret that the now his- 
toric "Ambulance No. 10" will appear no 
more in the annals of the Field Service. 
It has done noble work, however, and 
should have a decent burial in some 
American War Museum. The celebrated 
"Flivver," or "Tin Lizzie," as our diarist 
calls her, should not be allowed to end on 
a scrap-heap. Who can estimate the num- 
ber of lives she has helped to save? She is 
a veteran, and deserves an honorable 
ending. We should not be ungrateful to a 
thing which has served us so faithfully. 

We, who for so long remained out of the 
conflict, should never forget the debt of 



PREFACE xvii 

gratitude which we owe to these young 
fellows of our race, who from the first, with 
a keen sense of honor and splendid cour- 
age, unhesitatingly realized their duty to 
France and to the ideals which our Nation 
professed to uphold, and who went alone 
and served when we discussed and did 
nothing. To them, to our splendid avia- 
tors, and to those who enlisted in the For- 
eign Legion, be all honor and praise for 
representing, unbidden, the true spirit of 
the American Nation. 

" Doing my part of the everyday care — 
Human and simple my lot and my share — 
I am aware of a marvelous thing: 
Voices that murmur and ethers that ring 
In the far stellar spaces where cherubim 
sing." 

Since the diary was written, the au- 
thor has been placed in command of Sec- 
tion 1 and has been awarded the Croix de 
Guerre. The citation, signed by a general 
whose name is withheld for the present, 
reads as follows: — 

"The Commandant Adjoint Steven- 
son, W. Yorke, American Sanitary Section 



xviii PREFACE 

No. 1, enlisted volunteer since February, 
1916. 

"Commandant Adjoint of the Ameri- 
can Sanitary Section No. 1, never hesitat- 
ing to expose himself, has largely contrib- 
uted to the organization and direction of 
the evacuations under enemy fire. Brave, 
devoted, and of a rare modesty." 

The Editor. 

August 1, 1917. 



NOTE 

This is not a Treatise on the War. I 
know nothing about it. General Joffre 
never consulted me in developing his plans. 
It was rather careless on his part, but I '11 
try to forgive him. Nor did the German 
General Staff make any special effort to 
obtain my views. Of course, it has been 
their loss. Therefore, this little book is 
merely a record of what one driver of a 
"Tin Lizzie" happened to see during 
some nine months spent on the Somme, 
around Verdun and in the Argonne. 

William Yorke Stevenson 
Ambulance Driver 
Section No. 1 



CONTENTS 

I. Explanatory 1 

II. Paris — Neuilly 15 

III. At the Front at Last . . .32 

IV. On les aura 56 

V. Preparing for the Battle of the 

Somme 80 

VI. "Ils ne passeront pas" ... 99 

VII. Verdun 114 

VIII. "En Repos" 140 

IX. The Battle for Fleury . . .159 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Lieutenant Marquis Robert de Kersau- 
son de pennendreff, commanding sec- 
TION Sanitaire Americaine No. 1 

Frontisjriece 

At the Machine-Shop at Neuilly: Wil- 
liam Dwight Crane, William Yorke 
Stevenson, and Robert T. Roche . . 4 

Quarters of Section 1 at Mericourt on 
the Somme 34 

Three Philadelphians — Samuel H. Paul, 
L. Brooke Edwards, and W. Yorke 
Stevenson — at Mericourt-Cappy . . 40 

A Gunboat on the Somme .... 48 

The French Artist Tardieu ... 52 

Mlle. Flore Granger, the Only Woman 
in Cappy 58 

"Ambulance No. 10," driven by W. Yorke 
Stevenson in 1916 on the Somme and 
at Verdun 62 

A Slump in Real Estate at Cappy . . 66 

Victor White 70 

Bridge on the Somme Canal at Cappy 
connecting french and british llnes . 80 



xxiv ILLUSTRATIONS 

Senegalese on the Somme .... 94 

The Gate of Verdun 108 

The Lieutenant and the Squad . .112 

Nelson, Edward Townsend, and Roche . 128 

Loading an Ambulance with the Help of 
a German Prisoner 128 

Copy of Citation of July 26, 1916 . . 144 

Fishing a Ford out of a Hole: Roger, 
Stevenson, the Lieutenant, Herbert 
Townsend 194 

American Sanitary Section No. 1 receiv- 
ing its Citation and Croix de Guerre 
for its Work at Souville-Tavannes . 214 



AT TIffi FRONT IN A FLIVVER 



AT THE FKONT IN A 
"FLIVVER" 

CHAPTER I 

EXPLANATORY 

"Ont fait preuve du plus brillant 
courage et du plus complet devouement." * 

The old General ceased reading from 
the Army Corps Citation and, stepping 
forward, said : — 

"Gentlemen, as you carry no regimen- 
tal standard, I have the honor of pinning 
the Croix de Guerre upon this car as rep- 
resenting the Section." 

1 General Order No. 189. 

Group D. E. Staff Headquarters, S. C. No. 6611. 

November 5th, 1916. 

The General Commanding the Group D. E., cites by 
the order of the Army Corps: Sanitary American Sec- 
tion No. 1, under the command of the Lieutenant 
Robert de Kersauson de Pennendreff and of the Ameri- 
can Officer Herbert Townsend: In August and Septem- 
ber, 1916, has assured the evacuation of the wounded of 
three Divisions successively in a section particularly 



2 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

It was a "Flivver"!! 

Just a plain "flivver" with an ambu- 
lance body the after overhang of which 
gave the outfit the graceful aspect of an 
overfed June-bug. 

The following pages were not written 
for the instruction of the United States 
Army General Staff, although one might 
think, from the astonishing questions one 
is asked on returning from the maelstrom, 
that an ordinary Ambulance driver had 
the intimate ear of Generals Joffre and 
Nivelle, and had been consulted by them 
prior to most of their major operations. 
Neither is this a treatise on "How to Run 
an Ambulance Corps" — A. Piatt An- 
drew and his able assistants can tell you 
all about that. This is merely the record 
of my intimate personal daily existence 
with the kindly "bunch" of twenty 
happy-go-lucky pirates, gathered from all 

dangerous; has asked as a favor to retain this service, in 
which officers and conductors have given proof of the 
most brilliant courage and of the most complete devo- 
tion. 

(Signed) The General Commanding Group D. E. 

Mangin. 



EXPLANATORY 3 

parts of the United States, with whom I 
had the good fortune to be thrown for 
some ten months of the most interesting, 
and, I am almost tempted to say, the 
happiest, months of my life. 

Judging from the letters received from 
home, the Field Ambulance Sections 
are supposed to spend their entire time 
breathing battle-smoke and gases; dodg- 
ing shells and swabbing cars saturated 
with blood. As a matter of fact, some two 
thirds of the time is spent "en repos," 
where, apart from the few scheduled 
runs, the periodical washing of the cars, 
and the putting them in first-class repair, 
the drivers literally loaf. 

The remaining third, however, is more 
or less strenuous. But even then, this 
depends upon what portion of the battle 
line the Division to which the Section is 
attached happens to be placed. Generally 
speaking, each Division has an Ambu- 
lance Section, though lately the French 
have modified this system to a certain 
extent, and one becomes part of a " groupe- 
ment " which may include more than one 



4 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Division. At Verdun we worked with four 
Divisions at various times, day and night, 
and at times under really intense fire. At 
other times, as on the Aisne, on the 
Somme, and in the Argonne, we worked 
even closer to the Boches than at Verdun, 
but there happened to be no really active 
fighting during those periods. Hence, 
when the front line is mentioned, it may 
often mean nothing of serious impor- 
tance, and yet again it may mean the most 
appalling activity. 

For instance, at the time of the unfortu- 
nate death of Richard Hall, of Section 3, 
and again on the occasion of the sad tak- 
ing off of Kelly, of Section 4, these squads 
were working in what were thought for 
the moment to be quiet sectors. Yet Sec- 
tion 1, at Souville, and during the battle 
of Fleury, had nearly all of its cars hit, but 
not one man was even scratched. Such is 
the luck of the game ! 

When we four new recruits — Roche, 
who was Captain of the Princeton Crew 
in 1911, Mason, hurdles at Harvard, 1908, 
Crane, also Harvard, and myself — first 



H 111 




EXPLANATORY 5 

made our appearance on the grounds of 
the big hospital at Neuilly, we were re- 
garded with a certain amount of interest 
by the khaki-clad, swank-looking drivers 
who happened to be loafing about the 
yard at the time. The impression they 
made upon us was one of questioning 
doubt. One felt as though they were un- 
certain in their minds as to whether one 
had skipped the country with somebody's 
wad or his wife, or both. 

As a matter of fact, I doubt if more than 
half the men go over to France from really 
altruistic motives, although later on 
France gets a sort of grip on you that is 
hard to explain, and one begins to want to 
stay and to "see it through." It is her 
wonderful steadfastness in the terrible 
vicissitudes through which she has passed. 
It is the unfailing cheerfulness of the peo- 
ple and the way they regard the War as 
a disagreeable duty to be performed. No 
heroics! No lamentations ! They go about 
the bloody business as if it were part of 
the day's work. 

All this does not get to one for a while, 



6 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

but it gradually sinks in; and few of the 
returning men I have seen were going 
home willingly. It was because of affairs, 
family, financial, or collegiate; and nearly 
every one hoped to be able to come back 
and be in at the finish. Indeed, several did 
come back during my stay, and since my 
return to America I hear of more who 
have felt the strong call. Life seems so 
banal after one has been a part, however 
humble, of history in the making. As I 
write, I know that if I had my way, I 
should be back there washing my old "Tin 
Lizzie" in some muddy horsepond, right 
now. 

Well, after proving we were white, 
fairly healthy, and not palpable fugitives 
from the law, we were permitted to pur- 
chase uniforms, various sundries, and to 
join the other new recruits burrowing 
their oily way into the vitals of more or 
less dilapidated heaps of junk which we 
were told were cars that had been brought 
back from the front to be overhauled. 

The following pages I have left in diary 
form, just as they were jotted down at 



EXPLANATORY 7 

irregular intervals. In reading them over, 
I can see the gradual development of the 
raw " freshman," in the presence of things 
that strike him as strange at first, until he 
reaches the more or less "fed-up" attitude 
of the average so-called veteran. 

i 

March 5, 1916. On board French Line 

S.S. Rochambeau. Carrying three bun- 
dles, a bag, a bunch of rugs, and A. B.'s 
luncheon taken at the Holland House, I 
boarded the Rochambeau with some effort 
yesterday just as the whistle sounded, 
while I kissed various people good-bye. 
For a week I have been doing nothing else. 
This teary sob-stuff gets on one's nerves, 
particularly when one is scared to death 
anyhow. It 's the least kind thing one per- 
son can do to another, to call his attention 
to various things that may happen to him 
on a sea trip. I met a number of nice peo- 
ple, — a Frenchman, a priest, and a silk 
buyer; the latter wept most of the way out 
of New York Harbor, recalling "the wife" 
at home, and giving out a lot of maudlin 
stuff. I inquired how long he expected to 



8 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

remain abroad and he said, "Ten days"! 
Since then I have disliked him intensely. 
He kicks about the food too ! I have not, as 
yet, met the other Ambulance men. There 
are about six, but they keep to themselves. 
Thank Heaven, the bartender knows 
how to mix a dry martini. I 've got a fine 
stateroom. The food is poor and scanty, 
but I expected that. The ship is short- 
handed and very deep in the water, — 
even carrying freight piled high on the 
after deck. Only one good-looker aboard 
and the Captain has already nailed her — 
curses! I've met a nice Englishman who 
is going back to his mother to die. He has 
lung trouble and prefers mother to his 
wife and family and Reading, Pennsylva- 
nia, as a place to finish off. His mother 
lives at Grenoble, in the Alps. One French- 
man ordered onion soup this morning for 
breakfast. Everybody left the table. I 
got a bully lot of farewell letters, gifts, and 
telegrams — some from quite unexpected 
sources. It 's nice to find one has so many 
friends, but why do they all give one 
shaving kits? 



EXPLANATORY 9 

March 8. Nothing doing yesterday. 
Met most of the Ambulance men, — nice 
fellows, — R. T. Roche, the aforesaid 
Captain of Princeton Crew in 1911, Aus- 
tin B. Mason, of Boston and of hurdles 
fame at Harvard, 1908, and William 
D wight Crane, of New York and Harvard. 
Cargo mostly ether and oil; also muni- 
tions. There is a heavy roll, — racks on 
table; many dishes broken; tramp steamer 
caused excitement, likewise hot air about 
possible German raider. The boys are try- 
ing to get up a concert with a "busted" 
piano and no one to sing. Just met an en- 
American Ambulance man. Was in the 
Pont-a-Mousson Section and got Croix 
de Guerre. He used to do newspaper work. 
He is now with a "bunch" from Pitts- 
burgh backed by a rich woman who wishes 
to drive her own car at the front. She's 
got a swell chance ! He is beginning to get 
weary of his crowd. They only have one 
car in "White" and they expect to oper- 
ate as an Individual Unit! ! ! ! 

March 9. Still no news as to how the 
fight went at Verdun. Expected surely 



10 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

some information from Eiffel Tower; but 
if the Captain has received any, he is keep- 
ing it dark. More German-raider scares, 
when passing several freighters. I have met 
a nice old Italian returning from Amer- 
ica where he was buying horses for his gov- 
ernment. One of his sons already has been 
killed in the battle of Trentino. Another 
son also is at the front. He does all kinds 
of sleight-of-hand tricks. The sea has 
calmed down again, and the weather is fine. 

Funny how people act in these raider 
rumors — women get excited, men pretend 
to be very calm and joke nervously about 
being marooned on a desert island a la 
Robinson Crusoe. The only one I'd like 
to be marooned with seems to have made 
a date with some one else. The old Italian 
has great respect for the Germans, says 
they are the best business men — not 
bright, but very efficient. He thinks that 
neither side has as yet been even moder- 
ately weakened and looks for the war to 
last at least two years more. Almost 
every one else thinks a year should end it. 

March 10. At last news from Verdun. 



EXPLANATORY 11 

French still holding. Also news of British 
and Russian gains. Several ships (Allies) 
sunk; and one German boat reported es- 
caped from internment at Bordeaux. This 
aroused some uneasiness, as that is our 
destination. I have given all my books to 
the sick Englishman, as he says he can't 
get anything but French literature at 
Grenoble. Met a returning French officer 
— Comte de Portanier de la Rochette. He 
has been ten months in the trenches with- 
out so much as a scratch. Has been on an 
eight days' leave in the United States! 
Met a former Philadelphian, by name 
Josiah Williams, a doctor, who has been in 
the war since the start. He is a graduate of 
the University of Pennsylvania, class '88. 
Was in the battle of the Champagne tend- 
ing first poste de secours. Very interesting. 
He thinks the French have them licked 
now. Knows Drs. " Billy" White, "Jim" 
Hutchinson, and used to know Dr. Pepper. 
March 11. Quite rough. De la Rochette 
says that in the Champagne battle, when 
they captured German trenches, he, him- 
self, found seven dead Germans chained 



12 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

to their machine guns. Head winds and 
seas will make us a day late at least. The 
silk merchant is seasick, so we've had a 
respite on "the wife back in the States" 
stuff. I 've met a young woman of uncer- 
tain vintage who is on her way to Monte 
Carlo. Spends her time knocking Ameri- 
can efforts to help France; says the Am- 
bulance men only go over for notoriety's 
sake. I let her rave on, and when she was 
all through, bid her good-night, remarking 
that I was doing that myself. I hope it 
taught her a lesson. 

March 12. The Catholic priest and some 
of his friends announce that they will not 
attend the concert because little " blondy " 
collected the money. The ladies are rabid. 
One went to the priest and told him she 
understood that his job included being 
charitable to sinners as well as others. 
Priest very sheepish and presented a 
French novel for the auction! The little 
blonde, of course, is a professional; but 
she has done more than any one else in the 
way of getting up things for the wounded. 
The sea is so calm that several people I 



EXPLANATORY 13 

had not seen before turned up on deck. 
Imagine being in an 8 x 10 hole for eight 
days. Passed several tramps. Boats have 
been swung out and most people expect to 
sleep for the next two nights more or less 
fully dressed. We are now in the War 
Zone. We hold the auction and concert 
to-night. 

March 14. Anchored at the harbor 
mouth and came up late. After much red 
tope got off boat. They caught one sus- 
pect — a German Jew. 

"Taisez-vous, 
Mefiez-vous, 
Les oreilles ennemies vous 6coutent." 

This sign is everywhere posted, on trains, 
etc. Bordeaux little changed except for 
lack of autos. Women on all tram cars, 
and conductors on trains are women. 
There is quite a movement of troops, and 
trains are crowded. The reserves are all 
in the old red pants and caps, the new war 
pale blue being only used at the front. The 
new metal helmet is almost a replica of the 
old pikemen's casques, only enameled a 
pale dull blue-gray, and the comb is ap- 



14 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

plied instead of being all of one piece. It is 
very light and of tough steel. 

It is spring in the south. Cherry blos- 
soms and buttercups, and everywhere the 
vineyards are being tended and the fields 
sown. Farther north it is still only plough- 
ing time. 

At Poitiers we saw the first train-load of 
German prisoners; most of them were 
thoroughly satisfied to be out of the war. 
I must admit, though, that the tales of 
their being starved were not borne out by 
these men. They looked quite healthy. We 
also saw a train of Red Cross cars carrying 
wounded to the south for recuperation. 
Only the slightly injured, however. It 
seemed almost like returning to one's home 
to see the familiar towns again, Tours, 
Blois, and the rest. The curious, hazy 
atmosphere of France, the tiny villages 
nestling about their castles like chickens 
around the mother hen, and, above all, 
the familiar poplars. Paris is very quiet 
and dark; but there are plenty of cabs and 
taxis, and food is as good as ever. 



CHAPTER II 

PARIS — NEUILLY 

1916 

In the wax-works of Nature they strike 
Off each minute some face for life's hike. 
And of billions of mugs, 
On us, poor human bugs, 
There are no two exactly alike. 

Euwer 

Paris, March 16. To-day I met A. 
Piatt Andrew — bully fellow — much 
younger than I expected. He 's the " whole 
show" out at Neuilly. Other fellows are 
very nice too. Several start for the Front 
to-morrow, so the Equipment Department 
is very busy. I had to see half a dozen 
officials, French and American, to get 
vised. We are to take our driver's exams, 
to-morrow, and I ordered clothes. At 
Maxim's for dinner, I sat next to a party 
of sad-rich American Jews who were 
lionizing a fat English Jew in uniform. It 
was pathetic. Just as they were ordering 
the proverbial "wine," a crippled French 



16 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

aviator came in. The whole restaurant 
did him silent homage. The Aviation 
Corps of all the armies are by all odds the 
biggest heroes. The whole cafe, there- 
fore, drank various toasts to him, and the 
fat Jews just faded from sight. 

Just now the Neuilly Hospital is being 
cleared of its wounded as much as pos- 
sible. It looks as if they expected a big 
Ally offensive as soon as the Verdun battle 
is over. 1 There are very few wounded in 
Paris at present. Most of the Ambulance 
men are at the Front. They have organ- 
ized a new special fifteen-day corps for 
emergencies. It is now at Verdun. I hope 
I get a chance, although, of course, the 
turns go more or less by seniority. The 
food is fair at the hospital — all eat at 
long tables. There is an immense staff 
of nurses, doctors, and orderlies, and the 
place is much larger than I expected. Also 
it has a much higher standing with official- 
dom than I had been led to believe. For 
instance, in getting our residence permit, 
the moment we entered the court we were 

1 This has proved to be the case. 



PARIS — NEUILLY 17 

passed ahead of a large crowd who were 
awaiting their turns. The same thing oc- 
curred at the tailor's. 

The first growl I've heard over war 
burdens was from a taxi-driver, who ex- 
plained why his engine was "missing," by 
the fact that all the expert mechanicians 
were at the Front and they sent him out 
these days with an unrepaired "sale 
comme ga! . . . "(meaning more besides). 
The only things that never change in Paris 
are the "cocottes" at Maxim's. They are 
ever the same. 

March 18. Busy days, these. I am still 
"chasing" all around the city after vari- 
ous necessary papers. I passed auto exam. 
O.K. We are sleeping in a big barnlike 
room under the roof. They call it "the 
Zeppelin apartment." Only one cold 
shower. You have to warm your own 
shaving-water. Only one toilet for eighty 
men. Cots are nice, warm, and clean. It 
is hard to sleep, on account of the contin- 
ual coming and going. I got called at 
2 a.m. last night. A trainload of wounded 
arrived from the Vosges; one French 



18 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

General among them. We were not taken 
along, as we have not yet received our uni- 
forms and would not be allowed within the 
Station without them. 

The fellows got through at 7. Some of 
the new ones looked pretty sick from their 
first experience with the smell of gangrene 
and dysentery. All washed their teeth and 
one man had a cut treated. This is very 
necessary. Several of the internes have 
contracted gangrene and tetanus at in- 
tervals. 

I talked to one man who had to be oper- 
ated on seven times in the stomach. He 
had drains in him for weeks. Then hernia 
followed and he was operated on for that. 
He is an amusing bird. He walks about 
bent up like an old man. After telling me 
all the harrowing details, he added: "And 
they gave me a medal for it ! I 'd rather 
they'd given me a new stomach!" 

The French Government has taken 
charge of the hospital now, and they say 
the rules are much more rigid, and the 
"etiquette militaire" much more pro- 
nounced. The old men "kick" when they 



PARIS — NEUILLY 19 

come back from the Front, where every- 
thing goes ! They say the place no longer 
feels like the club it formerly was. 

I saw to-day the stuff captured from 
the Germans, now at the Invalides. As I 
entered, a military funeral came out. It 
must have been some high official. Look- 
ing into the German cannon muzzles 
gave one a rather sinking feeling, as the 
same types of weapons will be firing at us 
shortly. The workmanship was very good 
in the guns, but rather coarse (as compared 
to the French) in the aeroplanes. 

March 19. I had some fun to-day. I put 
on the uniform and, for a time, felt like an 
awful ass strutting about the streets in it, 
but it gets one a lot of privileges: half 
price at theaters, half price for such drinks 
as you are permitted, i.e., wines, beer, but 
no "hard" liquor, except between 11 a.m. 
and 2 p.m. and 5 and 9 p.m., and one must 
not be seen in uniform on the terraces of 
cafes. All drinks must be taken indoors. 
Also etiquette has it that if any sort of 
spree is contemplated one must dress in 
civilian clothes. 



20 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Incidentally, as the "cocottes" scorn 
any one not in uniform and are not per- 
mitted any alcoholic liquors whatever, 
the whole system works very well in keep- 
ing the men straight. 

The fun referred to above was due to 
the fact that our uniform is almost identi- 
cal with that of the English officers, unless 
one is close enough to note the Red Cross 
insignia on the cap and buttons. Hence 
you can strut along the Boulevard and 
be steadily saluted by all the raw "Tom- 
mies," of whom there are legions. At first 
it nearly took my breath away; but I man- 
aged to pull a solemn face and to salute 
stiffly back, although I started to use the 
left hand and I heard one of them remark 
about it. By the way, one of our drivers 
back from the Verdun battle tells me that 
the French, within a couple of days of the 
start on their big drive, had at least a 
million men massed there, and that the 
"Germs" had no more chance of getting 
through than the Republican Party at 
home has next fall. 

Dr. Gros gave us a talk on general be- 



PARIS — NEUILLY 21 

havior. He said one must obliterate all 
one's personal desires, and work for the 
good of France and France alone; not for 
personal glory, dodging shells, and that 
sort of thing. One is supposed to take ex- 
treme care of one's self and of one's ma- 
chine, and not to take it into dangerous 
places unless so ordered. For instance, 
there are definite rules in Paris as to Zep- 
pelin raids. The moment the warning is 
given, each car, in the parking space at 
the hospital, must be placed at a hundred- 
feet interval from every other car, — more 
if possible, — so that not many will be in- 
jured. Men must then come indoors in 
order not to be hurt. When either civil 
or military calls come from the struck 
district of the city, cars must not proceed 
in caravan order, but must assume inter- 
vals not less than a hundred yards apart, 
so that not more than one car can be 
struck. No lights are to be used unless 
specifically permitted by French authori- 
ties. All dormitory lights must also be ex- 
tinguished. 

March 20. I worked all day in the gar- 



22 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

age. At 7 p.m. we received notice that a 
train of "blesses" was due at La Cha- 
pelle at 4 a.m. I got more or less sleep and 
went out in the "padded cell"; and found 
more cars than were needed, but helped to 
fill them. The main trouble is that each 
ambulance and set of ambulances have dif- 
ferent methods of holding the stretchers, 
which the new men must find out for them- 
selves. It is a trifle hard on the wounded, 
as they get jostled about much more than 
if all the holders were alike. The Ameri- 
can Ambulance men have been so careful 
in handling the wounded, that now every- 
thing waits until they arrive to carry them 
from the train to the various corps of am- 
bulances. There is here, at present, a new 
Canadian Corps with some very good 
McFarland cars. 

When we got through at 7 a.m. we were 
told that another train would arrive at 
5 p.m. Therefore we worked in the garage 
for a while, then went to bed until 4.30. 
The first load of wounded were in good con- 
dition. They smelt very little, and were 
self -controlled. A reason why the Ameri- 



PARIS — NEUILLY 23 

can Ambulance men now carry most of the 
wounded is because two men already have 
been killed by the French brancardiers 
letting them fall; and many have been se- 
riously injured in being bumped about 
the head by careless handling. The cause 
really lies in their lack of understanding 
of the different mechanical appliances to 
hold the stretchers. The average French- 
man left in this employ is very dull. 1 

I have been surprised at the average 
small stature of the French soldiers, but 
they say it is a good thing in the trench 
warfare. Fred Dawson turned up from the 
Vosges to-day. 

March 21. We broke the record for 
speed last night. We got 129 men out of 
the cars in nineteen minutes. I happened 
to draw the officers' car, and being better 
fed, some of them were heavy to move, 
but they were clean and were free from 
odor. One had his back broken : the trench 
had caved in on him; but they expect to 

1 The reason is that all skillful men, not at the Front, 
are in the munition factories; only old or very young 
men are used for this purpose around Paris. 



24 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

save him, as he is not paralyzed. We got 
through at 11 p.m. I drove with an ass of 
a Belgian who tried to tell me all about 
his Pierce-Arrow ! How E. would laugh ! 

March 23. I met Miss Townsend, of 
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to-day. She is 
a nurse here. She greeted me as a long-lost 
friend. Another squad arrived from the 
Front with three cars for us, poor " boobs," 
to take to pieces and put together again. 
They are all going back, worse luck, so no 
vacant places yet. Parsons is going into 
the Aviation Corps. There are quite a 
number now who have gone from our 
Corps. Two new men arrived to-day, so I 
don't feel quite such a "freshman." I was 
complimented by the head of the mechan- 
ical department on quick and accurate 
work and was put in charge of a lot of fel- 
lows disassembling a "flivver." So far so 
good. 

March 24. Raining. A "bunch" from 
Section No. 1 came down and had to be 
entertained. Ewell, the machinery boss, 
asked me to a Sunday luncheon. He says 
his wife was a Philadelphian and would 



PARIS — NEUILLY 25 

enjoy talking about the old town. I went 
in with him and Fenton and had tea at 
Ciros with Mrs. Ewell and a Miss Elliott 
from Savannah, a very nice girl. 

March 25. A man in the private ward 
next to us died last night. Most of his 
brains were shot away. Another is ex- 
pected to die shortly. 

One "blesse" had a curiously tragic 
experience. He saw a friend looking over 
the trench parapet with his arm drawn 
back, holding a bomb ready to throw. 
Thinking he wanted the fuse lit, he did so, 
expecting the fellow to throw the bomb. 
But the man, not knowing the fuse was 
lit, did n't throw it and was blown to 
atoms. The man who lit the fuse, of course, 
was injured ; that is how he happens to be 
here. The poor fellow was terribly de- 
pressed by the tragic result of his blunder. 

They expect a big drive soon. The men 
have been issued a new kind of knife. It is 
like a brass-knuckle with a blade about 
eight inches long sticking out from the 
middle. The regular equipment for charg- 
ing now consists of two dynamite cart- 



26 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

ridges, six bombs, a knife, and a revolver: 
no guns at all. 

I met a rather nice little French girl last 
night. There is a young Englishman in one 
of the hospitals, she told me, who has no 
arms, no legs, is stone blind and stone 
deaf. He can only feel and talk, and all he 
does is to beg to be killed. She says a 
friend of hers who nursed a man, blind and 
without arms, is going to marry him be- 
cause she thinks it is her duty, although 
she does not care for him. She is not 
pretty; but as the man is blind it will not 
matter, she says. Such cases are not rare. 

March 27. We had a funny time yester- 
day. We were all "canned" for the day 
because so many were late for roll-call 
(8.30). Every one of us was up and about, 
but we didn't know Budd, the Squad 
Lieutenant, was ready to call the roll. So 
instead of being permitted the usual after- 
noon passes, we were all told that we 'd 
have to remain in until 7.30. Some kicked 
like steers because they had luncheon and 
dinner engagements. I had both, but said 
nothing, and the result was that I made a 



PARIS — NEUILLY 27 

hit with Budd, who took me out to sup- 
per at the Bal Tabarin and introduced 
me to a lot of what he calls his "Paris 
Squadarettes." He is really a very de- 
cent chap. They tried to teach me pool, 
which was somewhat amusing!! I took 
revenge on Budd this morning. I pulled 
him out of bed at 7 a.m. and rolled him on 
the floor. The usual weekly switch oc- 
curred between Neuilly and Juilly to-day. 
Five Fords here, by the way, are gifts of 
Johnny Fell — Mrs. Alexander Van Rens- 
selaer's son. 

I worked in the garage this a.m. and 
lunched with Ewell and his wife at their 
apartment. I met an Englishman named 
Vaughn; he is very rich, and has given 
himself and his car to the War Depart- 
ment. He is a sort of officer's chauffeur. 
He says they have already got the subma- 
rine that sank the Sussex. It seems that 
"subs " have learned how to cut the Chan- 
nel net; so Havre, Boulogne, and Calais 
are closed. The " Germs " have invented a 
method of seeing under water, some of 
them no longer employ periscopes, but 



28 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

the English, he says, are capturing them 
rapidly. The latest method, after sinking 
or netting a "sub," is to raise and repair it, 
and then operate it under its own number 
and colors. In this way many German 
"subs" have caught their own boats!! 
Also several German warships. Fears are 
being expressed by the Allies that America 
will get into the war over this latest Sus- 
sex outrage. What they hope is that we 
will break off diplomatic relations, thus 
enabling the English blockade to become 
really effective. 

March 28. I had to go out in No. 42 to 
Juilly with Fenton * to fit a front axle on 
an old 74 (Daimler). Mac got a "skid" 
while carrying a hundred litres of gasoline 
out there, and bent the steering-gear. 
Parsons, an old hand, then took the wheel 
and tried to run her into Juilly. The gear 
locked when they got going fast and the 
car was ditched. Mac was thrown thirty 
feet and landed on his nose. A Frenchman 

1 Powel Fenton, Section No. 3. University of Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelphia. Son of Dr. Thomas H. Fenton, 
president of the Art Club of that city. Fenton, later, 
served at Saloniki in Section No. 10. 



PARIS — NEUILLY 29 

landed on the roof of the car, but was n't 
hurt and neither was Parsons. We made 
the fifty-kilometer trip through Paris to 
Juilly in an hour and a quarter in the Ford, 
including a blow-out which we fixed in fif- 
teen minutes. The return trip in the dark 
we did in one hour, although we had to 
relight the oil lamps four times — not be- 
ing allowed to use the acetylenes. But we 
broke a spreader, hitting an island on the 
Boulevard ! Two new men were taken out 
by Eno, whose job is to test out the raw 
recruits. Some job! Van was driving, tried 
to take a curve sharply, never having 
handled a Ford, and capsized completely. 
One man was shot clear, but Eno and Van 
remained under the car, which continued 
to run upside down for a couple of minutes. 
Neither man was hurt, but Eno said he 
thought the motor would never stop. He 
knew it was bound to catch fire, and he 
said he never spent such a rotten five min- 
utes. We fixed the car, righted it, and it 
ran all right, except for a smashed dash- 
board and a dished hind wheel. 

Some of the men here have had most 



30 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

interesting careers. Budd was in the 
United States Army, then auto salesman, 
cowpuncher, and, when the war started, 
had to work as a waiter in a cafe until he 
could cash an American check. Aten is 
an explorer. Has been with Dr. Hiller, of 
the University of Pennsylvania, to Borneo; 
and also in the Arctic. Mason and Crane 
leave for the Front to-morrow. They hap- 
pened to be the first men on the list of 
those who arrived on the same day I did. 

March 29. A call came for La Chapelle 
for 1 a.m. We did a little diplomatic social 
stunt by inviting the Canadian Ambulance 
to 1 1 o'clock supper. It worked very nicely. 

One hundred and forty-four wounded 
arrived from the Bois-des-Corbeaux in 
front of Verdun; mostly badly injured, 
many from liquid fire. I got back at 6 a.m. 

I was told this morning that I might 
have the choice of joining the famous No. 
2 Section — the so-called " Pont-a-Mous- 
son" — but that they were now in retreat 
away back of the lines; or I might go with 
Roche to No. 1, formerly the Dunkerque 
Section, but which is now north of Amiens 



PARIS — NEUILLY 31 

at the junction of the British and French 
lines. This, they think, will be the "big 
bet" when the English offensive begins. 
So I took a chance on that. Andrew said 
he thought I had chosen wisely, even 
though, so far, this Section has not been 
particularly in the limelight. They say 
No. 1 and No. 4 (north of Toul) are likely 
to see the most action; but, of course, it's 
any one's guess. We leave on April 1st, 
according to present arrangements. I got 
a finger infected yesterday from working in 
the garage and getting a cut, and then 
carrying wounded; but they will fix me 
up in time to leave, they say. All band- 
aged now, hence "bum" writing. Oddly 
enough, Mrs. Hunter Scarlett (Miss Edith 
Townsend of Philadelphia, that was) fixed 
the bandages for me beautifully. 

Ferguson 1 came back from Verdun to- 
day with his head all bandaged. He ac- 
quired some sort of skin affection from 
sleeping in some dirty place. They all call 
him the "grand blesse," and he gets all 
sorts of attention on the street! 

1 Danforth B. Ferguson, of Brooklyn, New York. 



CHAPTER III 

AT THE FRONT AT LAST 

" They have oozed with the rest into a road and a river 
of mud, where the food and munition convoys get through 
three times in five. . . . 

Where the pelting of steel is as impatient and persistent 
as the pelt of the sleet and as pitiless." 

John Curtis Underwood 

April 1. Cappy. The last twenty-four 
hours have been more full of kaleidoscopic 
changes than any I have ever spent. Sit- 
ting here at Cappy within a mile of the 
front lines, with the incessant rumbling of 
the guns, the barking of the mitrailleuses 
and the shriek of the great shells in my 
ears, the world seems unreal. 

It is a beautiful warm sunny day. An 
old lady in a little shop here has just sold 
me a couple of perfect brioches and some 
chocolate. We are waiting for a couple of 
men to carry back to Mericourt where we 
have our barracks. The railroad trip to 
Amiens was interesting, inasmuch as we 
saw such enormous movements of sup- 
plies, guns, and troops, including the most 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 33 

remarkably colored armored trains with 
big six- and eight-inch cannon and aero- 
plane guns. They look about the same as 
the figured walnut stock of a fine shot-gun, 
the theory being that the mixed coloring is 
imperceptible in the fog or semi-darkness. 
We also passed many troop-trains, Eng- 
lish, South African, and Australian. 

At Amiens, which is the British Head- 
quarters at present, we were met by three 
Section 1 men and lunched with them. 
Then we proceeded to Mericourt-sur- 
Somme, which is at the junction of the 
British and French lines. We saw two ob- 
servation balloons and hundreds of cam- 
ions along the road. Guns everywhere, 
soldiers everywhere, and long lines of tents 
on the hills. Met the "bunch"; all good 
sorts; and we were shown our bunks in an 
old tumble-down farmhouse. We sleep 
on straw on which we place our blankets. 
The place is said to be clean, although one 
of the men was down with " gale," a sort of 
mange, and left to-day for Amiens for 
treatment. We go to a pump for washing; 
but though it is cold now it will be warm 



34 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

enough soon. The food is better than 
in Paris. An old Zouave cooks it. It is 
the regular army ration: soup, meat, one 
vegetable, sweet coffee, and vin ordinaire ; 
luncheon and dinner about the same. 
Breakfast, bread, coffee and "confiture." 
I slept to the rumble of the guns. 

I have met Herbert P. Townsend, of 
New York, our chief; very nice and court- 
eous and helpful. In the morning I was told 
all about the Section. We are attached to 
the Sixth Army. It is composed of the 
Colonials (Zouaves, Foreign Legion, Ton- 
kinois, etc.), the one which always leads 
the attacks. It is considered the best for 
charges. Just now it is doing little, being 
to a certain extent "en repos," although 
defending about six to ten miles of line. 

From the canal of the Somme, the divid- 
ing line between the English and French, 
is cast around a great arc running north- 
west to southeast. This Section has made 
a big hit with the French; and the French 
Lieutenant in charge is a mighty good 
fellow. We went to the farthest point the 
Ambulance can go along a road where the 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 35 

canal on one side has nothing to keep one 
from skidding into it. The road is full of 
shell holes and newly blown down or 
pierced trees. Men are killed there con- 
stantly, but the Germans only shell it 
when they know of an important move- 
ment. Individuals, or even individual 
autos, are not considered worth bothering 
with. It was about 4 p.m. on a bright 
afternoon, and the Germans could see us 
plainly as we went along. There was a 
terrific blast and discharge right out of a 
clump of bushes across the canal, and we 
found it was a huge eight-inch English 
naval gun which had been previously con- 
cealed. She fired right out over our heads; 
but I was not particularly startled, as I 
was so busy driving and watching the road. 
Then a German aeroplane came by, and all 
along the line the antiplane guns began 
to pop, studding the sky with puffs of 
fleecy white. It was a beautiful sight, al- 
though there is always some danger from 
the bits of falling shrapnel. The French 
Lieutenant at the advance post at Eclu- 
sier ordered me to take the car around 



36 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

a corner of the wood out of sight, and to 
walk back, which I did. He then let me 
pick up a few relics such as "75" empty 
cases, and the men sold me a couple of 
German "77" obus noses (time fuses). I 
came back after collecting the "tin Derby " 
of the Medecin Chef who had been killed 
on the day before, because he exposed him- 
self above the trench in order to bring back 
a dead soldier. He was criticized for doing 
it. In fact, anything foolhardy of that 
character, instead of being eulogized, is 
rather considered as reflecting on the in- 
telligence of the man who does it. 

I carried a few sick (not wounded) back 
to the hospital at Villers-Bretonneux. One 
had pneumonia, another syphilis. The 
doctors say that the latter has increased 
forty per cent since the passage of the 
Germans through Northern France in 
the first big advance to Paris. 

The night brought a heavy bombard- 
ment, the heaviest since the Section has 
been here (three weeks). We climbed the 
hill after dinner to watch it — a wonder- 
ful sight — mixture of a thunderstorm 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 37 

and Fourth of July; the incessant rumble 
of the guns with the great flashes lighting 
up the sky for miles, coupled with the beau- 
tiful blue -and -white flare bombs which 
hung in the heavens for half a minute or 
more at a time, making everything bright 
as day; then the range rockets from the ob- 
servation forts indicating by colored lights 
whether the batteries were shooting too 
high or low or too much to right or left. 

And above shone the calm stars looking 
down on a world gone mad. 

April 2. We expected to be called out 
during the night, but when we reached the 
first lines this morning, we found that the 
expenditure of thousands of dollars' worth 
of shells by both sides had resulted, in our 
Sector of about six miles or more of line, 
in only two or three carloads of wounded 
— eight or twelve men ! This was out of 
all proportion, it seems to me, to the ef- 
fort made. Of course, there were a few 
dead, and there may have been a larger 
proportion of losses by the Germans, as 
it was they who made the attack. 

The country is zigzagged with second- 



38 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

ary and tertiary trenches and bristles with 
barbed-wire entanglements, but all around 
and in every direction the peasants are till- 
ing the fields and the crops are growing. As 
I sit here now, in our garden at Mericourt, 
two old women are planting radishes and 
other early vegetables. Dandelions and 
violets are in blossom and above my head 
are the white buds of an apple tree. Yet an 
observation balloon is in the sky, aero- 
planes buzz to and fro, and dominating 
even the twitter of the birds and the buzz 
of the insects is the steady rumble of the 
never-ceasing guns. 

We had a physical inspection this after- 
noon; one man got sent back for treat- 
ment, and two for the mange, the same as 
the first man who had to go to the hospi- 
tal. It is not really the mange, but a sort 
of thing akin to it. It looks like hives and 
is contracted in the trenches. The cure is 
scrubbing with stiff -bristled brushes until 
the skin bleeds and then washing with 
sulphur, which hurts like fire; but one 
is cured in about five days — until one 
catches it again. 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 39 

April 3. I spent the night at our ad- 
vanced post at Cappy. The town is in 
ruins. There was no call for the trenches, 
the night was too clear. I awoke about 
4 a.m., thinking it was late because I heard 
the birds chirping; and found it was only 
the rats squeaking. The place is full of 
them. They walk over you at night, but 
nobody cares. We sleep on the stretchers, 
which are quite comfortable. The town 
is shelled every day at intervals. The 
" Germs " threw a few shrapnel into it 
this morning, but it did no damage. We 
ducked around the corner when one 
whistled close overhead, but it fell in a 
field beyond. We came back here to 
Mericourt for breakfast. The country is 
full of quail and hares, but no one both- 
ers them and they are very tame. There 
is considerable aeroplane shelling; but the 
"Germs" are so high up it is almost im- 
possible to hit them. All the soldiers 
with whom I talk are keen for the war to 
cease, and every one hopes it will be over 
before another winter. I hear that we 
may move away from here, and go into 



40 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

"repos" with the Sixth Army for about 
a month, prior to the big attack in the 
Champagne, but, of course it is only a 
rumor. 

April 5. I watched the twenty-first 
"Suicide Club" practicing hand-grenade 
throwing this morning. Magoun 1 and I 
noted where the things were thrown, with 
the idea of picking up a few "fusees" af- 
terwards. The grenades are pear-shaped, 
with a little sort of trigger and a ribbon 
with a button. The button is placed be- 
tween the third and little fingers exactly as 
one would spin a top ; then you throw, and 
as the missile leaves the hand, the pull of 
the ribbon and button relieves the spring 
which in turn relieves the contact point, 
so that when the grenade lands it explodes. 
Now and then they don't land right, so 
Magoun later picked up a couple of un- 
exploded ones and offered me one. I de- 
clined and told him he had better let 
them alone. 

Just as we were arguing, up came a file 

1 Francis P. Magoun, Harvard; Cambridge, Massa- 
chusetts. 




K 
O 

02 

K 
W 
£ 
W 
H 
cc 

W X 

o 
o 

2 

W a 

O P* 

o J 

OS w 

58 

Oh 

H 

W 

W 

& 

s 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 41 

of men with shovels to bury the unfired 
grenades. When they saw Magoun with 
two in his hands they nearly had a fit; said 
he was crazy, and to prove it they told us 
to get in a near-by trench and they'd show 
us. We all crawled in, and an expert then 
recocked the little spring and threw the 
grenade. She went off with a bang that 
shook the trench ! 

Oddly enough, that evening we got a call 
to carry two " blesses " just as we were sit- 
ting down to dinner. It was my turn to go, 
so I trailed down to the "poste de se- 
cours," minus dinner. Found one man 
with his face blown off and another one 
with his feet blown off. They told me he 
had been injured "fishing" in the canal. 
It appears that they threw hand-grenades 
in and collected the dead fish which 
floated up to the surface: a nice, sporting 
thing to do ! I must say I could n't feel 
very sorry for them. The same night we 
heard a heavy explosion close to our farm 
and supposed it was an incoming obus. 
Shortly after, a call came and we collected 
three more poor fools hurt, and three dead, 



42 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

from fiddling with hand-grenades. It oc- 
curred in the back room of the cafe in 
which we eat. I made it a point to rub it 
into Magoun, who is a kid just out of col- 
lege. That day, in our Sector, the French 
lost more men through their own careless- 
ness than from Boche activity. 

I have been put in charge of the gaso- 
line, oil, and tire supplies. Not a particu- 
larly cheerful job, as it cuts me out of a 
good deal of motoring. I must be at the 
Store between 7.30 and 9 a.m. and be- 
tween 5 and 7 p.m. The "Germs" made 
a little coup last night, capturing about 
sixty French and a small outpost trench. 
The regiment which suffered the loss is 
now expected to retaliate in kind. 

April 7. Collecting war trophies seems 
to be the chief recreation. It reminds me 
somewhat of the old marble days when one 
traded a clouded agate for two glass ones. 
A German "77" aluminum "fusee" is 
more prized than one made entirely of 
brass. The "105's" and "150's" are still 
rarer, and the Austrian "360's" are the 
best of all. Then, they trade hand-gren- 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 43 

ades and swap all sorts of other odds and 
ends. They also make various little trink- 
ets, like inkstands, match-cases, vases, 
out of the "75's." If the men worked as 
hard on keeping their cars tuned up as 
they do making souvenirs, this would be 
the best Section ever. 

I have been switched on to Victor 
White's car. He is an artist, and quite a 
good one, and they let him off for a week 
or so occasionally to paint war pictures. 
With true artistic temperament, he leaves 
his car in a rather sketchy condition, and 
I spent most of yesterday on my back 
under it cleaning the gasoline line. His 
brake does not hold, nor does the high 
gear, so chasing "blesses" with it is no 
merry jest. 

April 9. Being "Chow" yesterday I 
spent the day fixing White's car. (" Chow " 
means the man who sets the table and 
waits for the day. Each takes it by turns, 
but as we eat everything out of the same 
plate with the same fork and knife, there 
is no great strain upon the "Admirable 
Crichton" on duty). April 7th was a busy 



44 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

day. After I started this diary I was 
called out at 4 p.m. for four "coucheV at 
the front lines, Barraquette-Faucaucourt. 
The Medecin Chef there lives in what 
used to be a drain under the main road, 
between Brussels and Amiens. The 
"Germs" are within eight hundred yards 
and a battery of "75's" keeps going stead- 
ily on the left side of the road. On the 
right are some big mortars which fire oc- 
casionally. The place is pockmarked with 
shell-holes. I got four "assis" the first 
time. I got back just before dinner, and 
was called again to the aeroplane section 
at Moreuil. Missed dinner, but ate with 
one of the " brancardiers " at Villers- 
Bretonneux. He is a funny little guy. I 
meet him all the time carrying wounded. 
He has the Croix de Guerre with a star. 

I got back at 10.30 p.m. The car was 
stalled four times! Pitch black: gasoline 
tank full of dirt. I could n't take it down 
in the dark, so simply disconnected pipe to 
carburetor and pumped air through it 
with tire pumps. Had to do it several 
iimes, as dirt kept accumulating and I 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 45 

did not dare keep wounded waiting. Win- 
sor 1 had one die on him the same night. 
I got back to bed about 11 p.m. and was 
just going to sleep when a call came from 
Barraquette again. The wretched car 
would hardly run and it was brutally cold, 
but, of course, it had to be done. After 
passing Proyant, lights are ordered out. 
The "Germs" make a point of shelling 
any moving light on the chance of catch- 
ing a convoy or reinforcements. I got 
through all right by aid of the star shells, 
although challenged by the sentry. I had 
forgotten to get the password, but he 
looked me over and said it was O.K. 

Upon reaching Barraquette I found one 
contagious "couche." There was heavy 
shelling. I got to Villers-Bretonneux at 
12.30, with engine running badly. A half- 
hour of red tape before they would take in 
my man. The Medecin Chef was out, and 
the concierge had to chase all over the vil- 
lage to find him. Then he wanted me to 
take him to Amiens; but I told him the 

1 Charles P. Winsor, Harvard; Concord, Massa- 
chusetts. 



46 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

car couldn't make it; so he took him in 
finally. 

Coming home alone was poor fun. Two 
more stops to blow the dirt out. I got here 
at 3 a.m., and had to be up at 6.30 to set 
the table, being "Chow." It's a great 
life, though; I would n't miss it for worlds. 
We have a lot of fun on the side ; play base- 
ball and a funny sort of adaptation of 
tennis with a hoop. At night we play 
roulette for centime stakes, and occasion- 
ally we fish for pike with a sort of trident 
made out of old Ford brake rods. We 
swim now and then when it's warm. 

Old Rapp, the mechanic in charge of 
the shop, is a regular character and an aw- 
fully good fellow. We have lots of fun with 
him. We teach him every possible sort of 
fantastic English swear words as English, 
and he repeats them like a parrot. We 
tell him some of the most fearful things 
are words of greeting, and now and then 
he springs them on an Englishman or a 
new recruit, and the effect naturally is 
rather startling to the uninitiated. I gave 
some essence and cigarettes to one of the 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 47 

26th to-day and in return he fixed my 
legging. He turned out to be an expert 
saddle-maker ! 

Sunday, April 10. I went the round 
(Barraquette) but found no wounded, and 
came back and took a walk with Edwards 1 
and Underhill. 2 Saw a very interesting 
lot of English canal-boat hospitals up the 
river. I stopped in to ask after A. B.'s 
brother, but he is not with that Section. 
I witnessed a rather impressive religious 
service on one of the gun-boats on the 
canal. The pulpit, flanked by machine 
guns, and the altar, lighted by an auto- 
mobile headlight, looked quite dramatic. 
The priests' army uniforms are the best- 
looking of any. Black, with red edgings 
cut in regular cavalry or artillery style, 
with black and red fatigue caps and gold 
insignia. The first time I saw one I thought 
he must be General Joffre at the very least. 

In the afternoon Woolverton 3 had a 
funny experience. He was asked by an 

1 L. Brooke Edwards, Philadelphia. 

2 John G. Underhill, Williams College; Flushing, 
New York. 

3 William H. Woolverton, Yale; New York City. 



48 AT THE FRONT IN A FILVVER 

officer at Chuignes to take him and his 
orderly to Villers-Bretonneux. On the 
way they passed some quail, so the offi- 
cer ordered the car stopped and they got 
out with army rifles ( ! !) to shoot at them. 
If they had hit one there would have been 
no bird left. Incidentally it was Sunday 
and out of season as well; thus they were 
breaking about a dozen laws and Ambu- 
lance rules. Meantime some English 
motor-lorreys came along and all stopped 
to watch the shooting. In fact, the war 
ceased to exist for about an hour ! Wool- 
verton thought the story too good to keep 
and told it at dinner, and got severely 
called down, of course, by the lieutenant. 
We now call him the Big Game Hunter. 

A German aeroplane was brought down 
by the English to-day amid cheers from 
the onlookers. New French aeroplane 
sheds have been erected between here and 
Villers-Bretonneux. A lot of big English 
guns turned up to-day and are now along 
the line back of Chuignes to Barraquette. 
A big army of Russians also is said to be 
here, as well as Serbians and Italians. 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 49 

Two "Germ" prisoners were captured 
at Cappy. The way they catch them is 
to creep out at night with an automobile 
pistol and hold up the observation posts. 
Any "poilu" who "pulls the stunt" gets 
ten days' holiday and the Croix. One 
man has fifty days' leave coming to him 
already. The first-line trenches are prac- 
tically deserted except for sentinels. 

The French have succeeded in placing, 
in addition to the machine guns, a num- 
ber of "75's" right in the first line! — 
only two hundred yards from the " Germs " 
in spots. The General Staff has moved 
to Villers-Bretonneux. Huge amounts of 
supplies are coming in and numbers of 
large ambulances (French army). The 
Fourth English Army across the canal is 
also being heavily munitioned, and the 
Second French Army has come up to back 
up the Junction of the Fourth English 
and our Sixth. It looks as if something 
were in the wind. The new French canal- 
boat ironclads are about finished, too. 
They are right back of our quarters here 
at Mericourt. They carry machine guns, 



50 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

anti-aero guns, and one big six- or seven- 
inch naval gun in a turret. They are only 
about a hundred feet long, very low free- 
board, and draw about three feet of water. 
The "Germs" have a hard time spotting 
them, as they keep moving up and down 
the canal. 

April 11. We had a busy night last 
night. French aeroplanes raided Peronne. 
Boche shrapnel made wonderful fireworks; 
but nothing was hit. Then a Zeppelin 
tried to drop bombs on Villers-Breton- 
neux, but got spotted by the search-lights 
and retired. Then the "Germs" shelled 
Cappy. Woolverton and Bowman 1 were 
stationed there for the night, and a shell 
("77") fell through the roof. They and 
the "brancardiers" beat it for the cellar. 
No one was hurt. 

Raining to-day. The roads are awfully 
slippery. Some of the "brancardiers" at 
Cappy pulled a joke on the Medecin Chef; 
they hung one of the men across the pole 
with which they bring in the dead and 
marched solemnly into the "poste de 

1 Robert Bowman, Yale; Lake Forest, Illinois. 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 51 

secours." There the corpse came to life 
and asked for coffee! 

April 14. I spent last night at the ad- 
vance post at Cappy. There was only 
about a half-hour of shelling. The cres- 
cendo whistles always sound worse than 
they are. Most of the "77V and "105's" 
fell to the north of the town, seeking the 
big English naval guns. 

All sorts of jobs fall to the lot of an 
American Ambulance man! To-day, I 
posed with Victor White, the Irish artist, 
for the French artist, Tardieu. He has a 
Legion of Honor and other medals and is 
very well known. White took the part of 
a French "blesse," and I was the Ambu- 
lance man helping him to the car. The 
picture is to be used as a poster for the ad- 
vertisement of a "movie" of our Section, 
recently taken to be shown in America. 

April 15. I am back at Cappy again, 
although it's not my turn. The weather 
has been so bad that half the cars are 
in the repair shop. Also, several men are 
going away on the usual six days' furlough 
granted every three months. Things are 



52 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

quiet so far. The big French mortar shakes 
the house at about fifteen -minute inter- 
vals, but the Germans are not replying. 
There was heavy firing late in the after- 
noon; more rifles and mitrailleuses shoot 
ing than I have yet heard. Many wounded 
are coming in. I carried three hit through 
the lungs by mitrailleuse; one lived only 
an hour after I brought him back from 
Eclusier. 

Bright moonlight made the slippery 
canal bank easier to negotiate than usual, 
although it is always a ticklish business, as 
one cannot use lights, being in plain view 
and only two kilometers from the Germans. 
The poor fellow could n't breathe, but did 
not think he was going to die. The sur- 
geons naturally let him be and looked after 
the others — which irritated him. I asked 
if they couldn't give him morphia or some- 
thing, but they said they had none to spare 
on a dying man. He passed away about 
two o'clock in the morning. I then started 
back to Cerisy with three "couches" — 
two badly wounded. I had to rout out 
the hospital authorities, as all were asleep. 




THE FRENCH ARTIST TARDIEU 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 53 

I got there at 3 a.m., and got back to 
Cappy at 4. All lights were out as usual. 
I slept till 7, then took four more down to 
Mericourt. Some work! I found after the 
moonlight Eclusier trip that all the bolts 
on the steering-post had loosened! If I 
had gone much farther I must have lost 
control and probably have gone into the 
canal ! I fixed it up by moonlight with the 
aid of an electric torch, and got back here 
at Mericourt for breakfast. 

April 17. I took the Medecin Divi- 
sionnaire to Fontaine-Cappy, the most 
advanced post of all, where we are not al- 
lowed to go except with a "big guy." I 
am now waiting for him. He is making an 
inspection of the front trench, "bran- 
cardiers," and the rest. On his return 

they brought in another d d fool. 

This one had injured himself by making 
souvenir rings. He poured some liquid 
aluminum in a casting which had water in 
it and it blew his eyes out! I took him to 
Cerisy. There have been a large number 
of casualties among the souvenir-makers 
and the hunters; and, as often the shells 



54 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

have not exploded entirely, many hands 
and eyes are injured in working on them. 

Some of our men have had accidents on 
account of bad roads. End x and Nelson 2 
each smashed wheels, skidding into trees, 
while Imbrie 3 turned completely upside 
down, but was unhurt. The car was empty 
at the time. 

April 19. Rain, rain, rain, nothing but 
rain and mud. The roads are frightful. 

F is back, cured of the "gale." The 

doctors say it is a regular germ and is 
caught in the trenches and is transferred 
by blankets, clothes, rats, etc. Another 
fellow of the squad has it now. "Vic," the 
fox terrier which we got for protection 
against the rats, is more scared of them 
than we are. He hides in the beds at 
night! Wool ver ton had his jacket-pocket 
eaten off last night by rats which were 
after some chocolate he had in it. 

A number of the "blesses" we carry, I 

1 George K. End, Swarthmore-Columbia; New York 
City. 

2 David T. Nelson, University of North Dakota; 
Mayville, North Dakota. 

3 Robert W. Imbrie, Washington. 



AT THE FRONT AT LAST 55 

have noticed, are marked with the fleur- 
de-lys, meaning that they have been at 
one time convicts. The Government, 
shortly after the outbreak of the war, gave 
prisoners of this kind the choice of enter- 
ing the army — which most of them did. 
They are nicknamed "les joyeux," as 
they are only too happy to be free, and 
they are exceedingly reckless, as a mention 
or Croix de Guerre carries with it a re- 
duction of sentence. 

Woolverton leaves to-morrow and is 
kind enough to take this section of my 
diary back for me. Please take care of it, 
as I want to preserve a personal record 
of the Big War, even if my part in it is 
less in size than the proverbial nit on a 
gnat's nut! 



CHAPTER IV 

ON LES AURA 

Being an ode to the Vivandihre, 19H-17 

"SWEETIE" 

"Sweetie has a face like a tadpole; 
Sweetie has legs like a frog; 
Sweetie has a shape like a kangaroo; 
Sweetie has hair like a hog; 
Sweetie has teeth like a crocodile; 
Sweetie has a hand like a ham; 
Sweetie has a skin like an elephant's ear, 
But Sweetie don't give a D ." 

Easter Sunday, April 23. Nelson, my 
room-mate and side partner (we ran No. 
2 and No. 1 cars respectively), left to- 
day to return to Oxford to finish his 
course. Sorry to lose him. Before he joined 
the American Ambulance, he worked with 
the Belgian Commission, distributing food. 
He says the German Government on the 
whole acted fairly well, but that the officers 
tried to work all sorts of graft. He thinks 
that comparatively few of the Belgians 
would be satisfied to quit and submit to 
German rule. 



ON LES AURA 57 

More moving pictures were taken to-day 
of our Section. The films certainly should 
boost the American Ambulance. Although 
they are not faked, of course, only the 
most thrilling stunts we do were taken. 
They can't, for instance, depict the end- 
less car-cleaning, the fumigating, and 
many such dry details. Being Easter, 
we were treated to eggs, not only at 
headquarters, but even here at Cappy, 
where it was just my luck to get planted 
for twenty-four hours. However, the 
weather is fine and it is interesting to 
watch the aeroplanes. There is heavy fir- 
ing at intervals, especially at the aircraft. 

Mile. Flore Granger, the only woman 
left at Cappy, made good her promise of 
last week and wrote out some of the songs 
she sings to the soldiers. They all love 
her fondly. She washes their clothes and 
tends to their wants in the most cheerful 
manner, though forced to live in a dug- 
out, under constant shell-fire and only 
a few hundred yards from the Germans. 
On account of a slight limp, she is known 
as "La Boiteuse." 



58 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

CHANSON D'CAPPY 
PAR MLLE. FLORE GRANGER 

(Sung in the trenches on the Somme) 
LES TRANCHEESDE DOMPIERRE 

Aux abords de Dompierre 

En face de l'ennemi, 

Pres des amas de pierres — 

Restants d'la sucrerie. 

Dans les tranchees 

Des peupliers, 

Vite on se faufile en cachette, 

Braquant son fusil 

Sur l'ennemi 

Pret a presser sur la gachette. 

REFRAIN 

Aux environs d'Cappy, 

Lorsque descend la nuit, 

Dans les boyaux on s'debine en cachette, 

Car la mitraille fait baisser la tete. 

Si parfois un obus 

Fait tomber un poilu, 

Dans un fosse Ton colle ses debris 

Aux environs d'Cappy. 

Via la soupe qui s'acheve, 
On prepare son fourbi, 
Car ce soir c'est la r'leve — 
On va quitter Cappy. 
Des provisions, 
Et son bidon, 

C'est c'que jamais Ton oublie; 
Du p'tit bois, 




MLLE. FLORE GRANGER 
The only woman in Cappy 



ON LES AURA 59 

Je connais l'endroit 

Ou Ton doit servir sa patrie. 

REFRAIN 

Aux environs d'Cappy, 

Lorsque descend la nuit, 

Comme il ne peut coucher 

Dans une chambrette, 

L'brave soldat se prepare une couchette 

Dans un trou tenebreux, . 

Faisant des reves affreux. 

II se reveille pour veiller l'ennemi 

Aux environs d'Cappy. 

The Third Division goes into "repos" 
this week, and it is not certain whether we 
follow them or remain, connecting up with 
the replacing division (the Second). The 
English are gradually spreading eastward. 
I saw some Indian troops to-day for the 
first time: very picturesque, but gracious! 
how those turbans must breed vermin! 
The Russians are also arriving in consid- 
erable quantities together with enormous 
stores of ammunition. Large numbers of 
additional trenches and wire entangle^ 
ments are being built, and altogether it 
looks as if something big were afoot. 

April 27. Lieutenant de Kersauson de 
Pennendreff , our boss, has had an interest- 



60 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

ing life. He was with the Boers against 
the English, and says they subsisted al- 
most entirely on the supplies captured 
from the English. They had more rifles 
and munitions than they had men to handle 
them and they buried large quantities for 
future use. He says he thinks trench war- 
fare first began in that war. When the Big 
War broke out, he was selling autos in 
California. He came back and was made 
Lieutenant of Automobiles and later took 
over Section No. 1 of the American Am- 
bulance. He is a marquis and belongs to 
an old Breton family. 

To see a French regiment going to at- 
tack is interesting. They are all ordered 
to put on clean underclothes, as this 
prevents infection of wounds when the 
bullets pass through their clothing. The 
men kiss each other good-bye, send all 
their little knick-knacks and valuables 
back, and make their wills. They regard 
it as practically certain death or disable- 
ment. 

April 28. All peasants have been or- 
dered out of Mericourt. It looks like 



ON LES AURA 61 

something doing. Carson 1 is leaving to 
join the new auto repair section near Paris, 
so I get his car, old No. 10, — an awful 
lemon, — said to have been through the 
battle of the Marne. 2 All gift cars have the 
names of the donors painted on the side 
of the seat. It is certainly tough, after 
spending two weeks tuning up White's car 
so that it would really run. Now the work 
has to be done all over again. I had to put 
in a new rear axle, new high gear, new glass 
in acetylene lamps, clean and adjust com- 
mutator and vibrator and spark plugs; 
otherwise, "No. 10 was in perfect condi- 
tion"! 

A Boche aero passed over us to-day and 
English and French shrapnel pieces fell 
all around us as they shelled it. The 
whistling was anything but pleasant. Two 
German "avions" were brought down 
to-day. One man was captured, the other 
was killed. We had an inspection by the 
head of the Auto Section yesterday. He 

1 James L. Carson, Chicago, Illinois. 

2 No. 10 was the car driven by Leslie Buswell at 
Pont-a-Mousson, and the subject of his delightful book 
"Ambulance No. 10." 



m AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

picked on us a good deal at the time, but 
told the Lieutenant afterwards that he 
was much pleased. He couldn't, of course, 
understand how anything so crudely 
thrown together as a Ford would run at 
all. Campbell, 1 Francklyn, 2 and White are 
back from their six days' furlough and one 
new man, Culbertson, 3 of Princeton, 1911. 
The Section is now full. Cunningham 4 
is also back with us, having finally been 
able to tear himself away from the charms 
of Paris. He's already looking better. 
Roche, Magoun, Francklyn, and I now 
occupy the palatial apartment known as 
the "rat-incubator." Some of the boys 
have erected a tent — Underhill, Baylies, 6 
and Paul; 6 as they were above us in the 
Rat Hole, and their feet continually kept 
coming through the ceiling, carrying plas- 

1 Joshua G. B. Campbell, New York City. 

2 Giles B. Francklyn, Lausanne. 

3 Tingle Wood Culbertson, Princeton; Sewickley, 
Pennsylvania. 

4 John E. Cunningham, Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology; Boston, Massachusetts. 

6 Frank Leaman Baylies, New Bedford, Massachu- 
setts. 

6 Samuel H. Paul, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. 




"AMBULANCE No. 10," DRIVEN BY W. YORKE STEVENSON IN 
191(3 ON THE SOMME AND AT VERDUN 

One of the ten first Ambulances of the American Field Sarvice. The gift of 

Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, in 1915. Driven by Leslie Buswell 

in 1915 at Pont-a-Mousson 



ON LES AURA 63 

ter and splinters on to us, we are now more 
comfortable and clean, although Lewis, 
Lathrop, 1 and Edwards are still up there. 
"Huts" Townsend, White, and Wood- 
worth 2 have the best rooms in a really well- 
kept house, while Sponagle, Cunningham, 
and Winsor sleep next to the repair shop. 
The Lieutenant and other Frenchmen at- 
tached to the Section sleep in the Bureau, 
a nice little well-kept cottage also. The 
washing is done by a nice little old woman. 
She hates to leave and hopes to stay 
despite orders. 

May 1. At Cappy for twenty-four hours, 
with Imbrie as partner, now that Nelson 
has gone. New regime here with the Second 
in charge. We eat with the officers now. 
They say there will be a French offensive 
around here soon. Another Army, the 
Tenth, has come to back up the Sixth. 
The General of the Sixth is Fayolle; the 
General of the First Corps, to which we 
are attached, is Berdoulet. There is much 

1 Julian L. Lathrop, Harvard; New Hope, Pennsyl- 
vania. 

2 Benjamin R. Woodworth, Germantown, Penn- 
sylvania. 



64 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

hot air among our men about the chances 
of getting the Croix de Guerre. They 
ought to consider themselves well off if 
they don't get the Croix de Bois ! 

The English repulsed a Boche attack 
night before last about a kilometer from 
here and turned it into a small massacre, 
only losing six or eight men themselves. 
The "Germs" are beginning to show con- 
siderable activity against the English, and 
rumor has it that they are moving their 
big guns from Verdun toward the western 
end of the line near the Belgian front and 
English left. The official rat-catcher was 
brought down to Mericourt, but as far 
as results go he only appears to have 
made them more active by disturbing 
them. The French are firing about four 
shells to one of the Germans now, and are 
using more large shells, "90's," "105's," 
and " 220's." They also have a new " 400," 
said to surpass the German "420," and 
rumor has it that both the English and 
French are testing out a new "520"! 

Last night at Cappy was some night! 
Eighteen shells dropped on the town and 



ON LES AURA 65 

four hit the hospital while Imbrie and I 
were in it. Imbrie was reading in the front 
room and I was in bed snatching a snooze 
before the expected night call. We heard 
the incessant whistle and crashes, one 
right after the other. Being only half- 
dressed, I figured it would be just as well 
to stay where I was as to go down to the 
bomb-proof, as the firing would probably 
be over before I was ready — which proved 
to be the case. One shell came right through 
the mortuary window and burst, leaving 
nothing of the room but scraps. Luckily no 
bodies happened to be there. Two others 
hit Castellane's wardroom, one about the 
door and the other at the step, rocking the 
house, which, if it had not been substan- 
tially built of brick as a municipal and 
school building, would have collapsed. The 
fourth landed on my side, and I could 
hear the pieces rattle through the trees. 
One sliver went slap through the front of 
my car, and I found it in the back of it 
this morning. This is the first time one 
of the cars of this Section has been di- 
rectly hit, although several have been 



66 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

scarred by flying bits of scenery. After 
firing the salvo of shots which lasted about 
ten minutes, although it seemed an hour, 
the Boches were silenced by heavy shelling 
from both English and French. 

I got a call for Eclusier (the bad canal 
run) and got two men. Imbrie also got a 
call, and thereafter we were running until 
9 a.m. ; the most active session I have had 
yet. They shelled Cappy again just after 
I left. Apparently they were either after 
one of the little gunboats which had just 
arrived up from Mericourt or the extensive 
diggings around the hospital, making 
bomb-proofs for "blesses." From an aero- 
plane the latter may have looked like en- 
trenchments or emplacements for guns. 

May 6. I broke the rear axle yesterday 
while on "Bureau." "Bureau" is the car 
that takes extra calls when all the others 
are busy. There are first and second 
"Bureau" men who relieve each other. 
Then there are four replacement cars to 
take on any route over which a regular 
has come to grief. The order changes every 
day so that every one gets a turn at the va- 



ON LES AURA 67 

rious runs, replacements, and "repos." It 
takes about a week before one's turn re- 
peats. I ran all day on "Bureau" calls 
— about one hundred miles. The first call 
was at 7 a.m.; the last at 11 p.m., carry- 
ing four " assis " from Faucaucourt (within 
rifle range of the Germans), on the per- 
fectly level Amiens-St. Quentin route. 
The engine began to race and the car 
slipped. Luckily Brooke Edwards was 
with me as orderly, and he ran a kilo- 
meter to Lamotte and 'phoned for an 
extra car. Imbrie came and took the 
"blesses" (they had blown themselves up 
with blasting powder working in a mine 
tunnel) . I slept in the car all night in the 
rain on a stretcher covered with blood. I 
guess I'll get "la gale" all right this time. 
Every now and then somebody would poke 
his hand in the back (the road was full of 
passing soldiers) and wiggle my feet and 
ask if I was dead or "blesse" and deserted 
by the driver. I had to explain a dozen 
times to well-meaning "poilus" that I was 
waiting until daylight to repair the car. At 
9 a.m. Sponagle and Francklyn turned up 



68 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

with an extra car and we got it in by 2 — 
starving. 

May 7. We have had our heads clipped 
and we look like a bunch of jailbirds. It 
feels fine, however, and we have gone the 
Section 2 bunch one better. Growing 
beards is certainly poor sanitation. Some 
of the men left little scalp-locks or tiny 
points like devil's horns which they waxed. 
Of course, the French regard us as "bugs." 
The Lieutenant finally vetoed the extra 
frills as undignified. 

May 8. I was talking to Campbell this 
morning regarding the beauty of the new 
run to Rennecourt through the avenue of 
blossoming apple trees, saying I was glad 
to draw it this morning. Good joke on me ! 
As I started down the said avenue, two 
shells fell, about fifty yards ahead. Need- 
less to say the rest of the view became a 
mere blur, as I opened up all speed and 
beat it past the shell-holes before any more 
dropped in. I got a blow-out later, but 
luckily was out of range. • 

May 9. The Lieutenant took Cunning- 
ham, Winsor, Imbrie, and me to the new 



ON LES AURA 69 

"poste de secours" on foot to-day, by the 
famous sugar-house of Dompierre, which 
has been destroyed almost entirely, not by 
shells, but by machine gun and rifle fire, so 
intense has been the fighting. The village 
is still held by the Germans to date, but 
the French hold the outskirts, and expect 
soon to take the whole thing. Songs have 
already been written about the sugar-house. 
We were between the first and second 
line trenches in plain sight of the Germans 
and within easy rifle shot (about four hun- 
dred yards). It is very interesting to see 
the trenches from the inside. I saw piles 
of aerial torpedoes and other munitions, 
including telephone posts thirty and forty 
feet underground! One "75" was within 
five hundred yards of the Boches and 
they did n't know it ! In one of the new 
posts we have to stop our motors about 
fifty yards away and turn the cars by hand, 
as the noise of backing around could be 
heard and a German mitrailleuse controls 
the approach. Needless to say we only go 
there at night. We walked miles through 
the trenches and could easily have become 



70 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

lost if we had not had a man to accompany 
us at intervals as we entered new sections. 
The men seemed comfortable enough, ex- 
cepting that they never see anything but 
the sky, as the top of the trench is a couple 
of feet above their heads. At intervals we 
passed graves of those killed at times of 
great activity and who had simply been 
thrust into the sides and pegged there 
with basket-work. Rather unpleasant 
on wet days I should think. Also at times 
the trenches pass through graveyards, and 
here again coffin-heads and bones occa- 
sionally stick out of the sides. 

May 10. Victor White is cited by the 
order of the Division "for coolness, effi- 
ciency, and bravery under fire." He will 
get the Croix and everybody is delighted. 
He was loading two wounded men at 
Cappy when the Germans turned loose 
their shells and all the men who were help- 
ing beat it for the cellar. Vic finished the 
job by himself, started his car, and drove 
the men down out of shell-fire to Cerisy. 

A funny thing happened to Lathrop. 
The Boston papers came out with long 




VICTOR WHITE 



ON LES AURA 71 

notices of his death under fire. His family 
nearly went crazy until the Paris Ambu- 
lance wired them that nothing had hap- 
pened; but since then they have been 
receiving letters of condolence. No explan- 
ation of how the thing started has been 
given, as no one has even been hurt here, 
and only one man has been killed in the 
whole Ambulance so far (Hall). We heard 
later that one man had died of spinal men- 
ingitis in another Section, and it was his 
death that caused the mix-up. 

May 12. We had received word that we 
were to be inspected yesterday and that 
White and Campbell would be officially 
awarded the Croix de Guerre. Everybody 
slicked up, shaved, and cleaned rooms, 
yards, and cars, but nothing happened 
— the General sending word he would not 
be able to come. 

White and Campbell were awarded the 
crosses because they were the oldest and 
most efficient men in the Section, the 
Third Division General having allotted 
two crosses to our Section. This seemed 
to be the fairest way to do. White also 



78 AT THE FBONT IN A FLIVVER 

got a special mention by the Second Divi- 
sion, so he gets two stars, a very unusual 
thing. There is also talk of giving the 
whole Section the Croix; but this is only 
a rumor. 1 

May 15. The Chasseurs d'Afrique and 
Senegalese have a uniform practically 
like the English khaki. They wear red 
fezes called "kitshia"; but the inside of 
these is yellow, so that when within range 
they simply reverse the hats. The Second 
Colonials have a fine band, — the first I 
have heard at the Front, — and we have 
concerts almost every day. 

I got the old "bus" working again with 
a new motor, new rear construction, new 
wheels. The chief remains of No. 10 are 
the frame, body, insects, and radiator. As 
all the replacing parts are old, anyway, 
the chariot is no ball of fire at that, but 
she wheezes along somehow. 

May 18. We are here at Harbonnieres 
on the new twenty-four hour service, with 
the Third Division — four of us; quiet 
nights — but this morning an aeroplane 

1 This they did get later. See preface, pp. xii-xiv. 



ON LES AURA 73 

fight took place right over us. Two French 
machines brought down a German who 
was reconnoitering over our lines. He 
landed about three kilometers within our 
lines. 

I talked to an old French farmer who 
seemed very well up on late events. He said 
he believed Wilson would surely be de- 
feated at the next election, and that Roose- 
velt would again be President. In common 
with most French landowners I have talked 
to, he felt that the aftermath of the war 
would be very serious. He was afraid of in- 
ternal troubles over the partitioning of the 
spoils. He invited me to his farmhouse and 
gave me a glass of cider. He thinks the 
Boches are by no means done, but that 
they are on the wane. He looks for a sec- 
ond battle like Verdun here on the Somme, 
as this is a naturally weak position, being 
a junction of the two armies. On the other 
hand, the enormous amount of effort to 
make it impregnable is obvious. Rows 
and rows of second, third, fourth, fifth, and 
sixth line trenches; acres of barbed wire; 
fields sown with mines, and every tree and 



74 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

bush a mask for a cannon or mitrailleuse 
show that nothing is being neglected, while 
additional railways are being built to bring 
up supplies and the roads (thank God!) 
are being overhauled and repaired. The 
winter and spring have put them in a 
frightful state and our cars certainly re- 
flect it. 

May %%. A German flyer played a clever 
trick on being chased by four French 
planes to-day. He pretended to be driven 
to earth, stopped his engine, and prepared 
to alight. The French ceased firing, came 
planing down near him, and stopped; he 
then quickly started his motor again, 
veered off to the right over some woods, 
and got back to his lines before the French, 
who had actually grounded, could get up 
again. 

I am back again at Cappy, for the first 
time since I broke my rear axle in a shell- 
hole. End and Magoun did the same thing. 
We have to sleep in the cave now ! — very 
annoying. It 's damp and stuffy. Loads of 
more guns up here. The French are using 
a new "270," and the fields are full of am- 



ON LES AURA 15 

munition, covered with branches of canvas 
painted like scenery. We went up to one 
of the new "postes de secours" where we 
are under mitrailleuse fire. We have to 
turn the car around by hand so that the 
Germans won't hear the noise of the re- 
verse gear. On coming back we found the 
road blocked by a newly fallen tree hit by 
a shell. It took an hour, with the help of 
the "brancardier," to jack it up and shove 
it around. 

Certainly I got a thrill on the second 
run coming back from Cerisy by moon- 
light about 2 a.m. Just before crossing the 
Somme, I noticed low-lying wisps of misty 
vapor. Having already been stopped 
twice by sentries and as the cannonading 
was heavy, it suddenly struck me that an 
attack might be going on and that this was 
gas. It looked pale blue in the moonlight. 
I stopped my motor and got my gas mask 
out, but as there seemed to be no general 
movement of troops, I decided to go ahead. 
I hurried through, and was greatly relieved 
to smell the good old fog smell. The two 
sentries, French and English, on the Somme 



76 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

bridge must certainly have a bad time. 
Shelled continually, and being at the low- 
est point in the valley, they are more apt 
to get the gas than the troops quartered on 
the higher ground. 

White and Campbell finally received 
the decorations to-day. An amusing inci- 
dent occurred when the General took 
White (who had been told to stand out in 
front of the line) to be a mere onlooker and 
ordered him back. It had to be explained 
to him that this was the hero who was 
to be decorated ! He apologized, of course, 
but it got every one giggling and somewhat 
marred the solemnity of the occasion. 

May 26. Culbertson came back from 
Cappy with a long tale of experiences this 
morning. He had not been to the Sucrerie 
of Dompierre Poste before, and got a call 
at 2 a.m. He took a " brancardier " to 
show him the way. They got out in the 
open road on the top of the hill and 
could n't find the "poste"; so the "bran- 
cardier" went on to look for it and Cul- 
bertson stopped his motor and waited. He 
says it seemed about a year before the man 



ON LES AURA 77 

came back. Meantime every time the mi- 
trailleuse would start in, old Culby would 
try to find some place to hide, and he says 
there wasn't the vestige of anything 
within sight. Finally they got down to the 
"poste," and he tried to turn, with the re- 
sult that he backed off the road into a 
trench. He had to get a lot of soldiers to 
lift the car out. They pushed it out amid 
cheers, everybody forgetting the Boches, 
and, incidentally, the"blesse." Then, they 
heard a yell from the "blesse" whom they 
had nearly run over with the car as he lay 
in the road. Culby says the Germans 
seemed so close that he felt as if the front 
wheels were in the German trenches and 
the back wheels in the French. Finally, 
coming back, he says he was so glad that 
he started to beat it fast, when the " bran- 
car dier" put his foot on the electric light- 
switch by mistake, and suddenly the 
lights flared up, and a moment later the 
Boches started shelling. He says he 
thought he hit every shell-hole back to 
Cerisy, and once he ran over a ball of 
barbed wire left to be stretched at the side 



78 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

of the road, but he did n't care so long as 
he got there. The marvelous part of the 
whole thing was that the car was scarcely 
hit at all; only a few bolts loosened. 

The name of the " poste " is " l'Arbre-en- 
Boule," because there is a large stump of a 
tree there which the French hollowed out 
and used as an observation point. The Ger- 
mans got onto it and shelled it down and, 
having the exact range, kept the French 
from using it. They also employed it as a 
range-finder for other things, such as bat- 
teries. The French, then, moved it one 
night about ten yards and set it up again. 
Ever since, the Germans have been shell- 
ing it and missing not only the tree, but 
the other objectives. 

At Harbonnieres to-day with Imbrie, 
Francklyn, and Woodworth. There is a 
steady drizzle, and nothing to do for 
twenty-four hours. Imbrie is an interest- 
ing bird. He has traveled all through Africa 
with a professor who went there to study 
monkey talk; — locked himself up in a 
cage with gorillas, and such! and claims 
to have discovered twenty words. Imbrie 



ON LES AURA 79 

says "it's all rot"; but that the shooting 
was fine and the trip most interesting. He 
says that after he made up his mind that 
the monkeys knew more than the profes- 
sor, he left him and got some splendid 
elephant hunting. 

I went over to the English lines this 
afternoon and saw a series of impromptu 
boxing-matches. There was a new Ser- 
geant-Ma j or in one company who was be- 
ing watched to see how he would turn out, 
and he organized the matches, starting in 
himself in the first bout. The best of feel- 
ing prevailed, and when the men threat- 
ened to become too rough, they were cau- 
tioned by the Lieutenant who kept time. 
Many French soldiers came over to see 
the bouts and both armies fraternized in 
the most cheerful manner. They daily play 
soccer football also. 



CHAPTER V 

PREPARING FOR THE BATTLE OF THE 
SOMME 

La vie est breve ; 
Un peu d'amour, 
Un peu de r£ve, 
Et puis — bonjour! 

La vie est vaine ; 
Un peu d'espoir, 
Un peu de haine, 
Et puis — bonsoir! 

June 1. Big doings to-day; the order 
came at 10 a.m. to move the whole encamp- 
ment from Mericourt toLamotte-Santerre, 
and we were ready by 2.30. Then, just be- 
fore we left, we were told to go to Bayon- 
villers instead; and here we are! It is not 
such a bad billet. The town is more mod- 
ern and in better repair than Mericourt. 
We are sleeping in our cars to-night, but 
will find quarters to-morrow, which does 
not do Imbrie and me any good, as we go 
to Cappy for twenty-four hours and so 
get " stung" out of any decent pickings for 
sleeping accommodations. The Section 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 81 

remains with the Third Division. The 
Twentieth Corps, which withstood the 
first shock at Verdun and thereby earned 
its place in the Hall of Immortals, is to 
straddle the Somme, having had a month 
"en repos." When the "Regiment de 
Fer" came in with its flags — or what 
was left of them — flying, everybody sa- 
luted. They are said to have saved the day 
in the first German rush, the critical period 
at Verdun. The Sixth (ours) won its spurs 
in the Champagne, and is next to the 
Twentieth, and we continue to handle the 
front line as before, but from a different 
base. 

The English have moved a kilometer 
to the west, so that the conflicting orders 
bound to occur at the Somme are elimi- 
nated. A lot of new rail lines have been put 
through in the last few days, and the sup- 
ply of ammunition in the fields is some- 
thing beyond belief. Word has been given 
that everything in the way of preparation 
must be finished by the 20th. The French 
had arranged to be ready by the 15th, but 
the English asked for five more days. The 



82 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

battle of the Somme should be some bat- 
tle. The fields are full of poppies, yellow 
daisies, and cornflowers, and the country 
is beautiful. The poppies remind one of 
Omar's 

" I sometimes think that never blows so red 
The rose as where some buried Caesar bled." 

At Verdun, so far, they say, the German 
losses amount to 450,000 and the French 
to 200,000 — even the poppies grow no 
thicker ! 

Big mortar batteries are arriving along 
the Front. I saw several here, at Cappy, 
this afternoon, hidden near the cemetery. 
Even when a man gets killed he is not per- 
mitted to rest in peace nowadays. The 
Germans are bound to blow hell out of the 
cemetery, trying to reach these new mor- 
tars. 

June 2. Bayonvillers is not a bad town, 
but our quarters are awful; all of us bunk 
together in a big loft, with the cars and 
the eating-place about two squares away. 
The reason for the crowding is the piling- 
up of new troops in all these districts. I 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 83 

had fun with Francklyn this morning. It 
appears that he used Imbrie's "paillasse" 
last night, and when Imbrieand I returned 
from Cappy it was nowhere to be found. 
Francklyn was still asleep, so we carried 
him bunk and all, out into the main street 
and placed him on the sidewalk. A large 
crowd immediately gathered, thinking he 
was a "blesse," as he had nothing on but a 
blanket. He woke up just as a Division 
Staff was passing, and he certainly did 
make a quick jump for the yard with the 
blanket flapping like the tail of a kite be- 
hind his long, bare legs, as he beat it. 

June 3. An amusing afternoon. Being 
second "Bureau," I had nothing to do, and 
it so happened that a bunch of kids from 
Harbonnieres came down to be confirmed ; 
the girls in their little white dresses and 
the boys in their best Sunday-go-to-meet- 
ing clothes. Bowman, who was just back 
from Paris, brought out the Victrola with a 
lot of the latest records (I don't know what 
we'd do without that Christmas-gift Vic- 
trola from Miss Caroline Sinkler), and we 
had a regular raft of children all over us all 



84 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

afternoon, as the school let out at the same 
time. One girl, a little older, who serves 
the store at Harbonnieres and who had 
come down with the diminutive brides in 
all their white gear, appeared to have fallen 
desperately in love with Duffy Lewis. 1 She 
had his picture and looked us all over, but 
could n't find Duffy. Then she spotted 
Paul's back (Paul being about the same 
size as Lewis) and rushed over to him, 
only to return disappointed. " Ce n'est pas 
lui ! " Then Woody, twisting his mustache, 
came over to ease her mind, telling her 
Lewis would be here, but unfortunately he 
was "soused," and sleeping it off! (Lewis 
never touched a drop in his life.) We got 
a lot of pictures of the priest and others 
and shortly afterward Duffy turned up, 
and what he did n't get in the way of chaf- 
fing, — some fun! 

After dinner I got a call to go in a hurry 
for a "blesse" at the "Ravin" de Mor- 
court, nobody knew what "ravin" was 
meant, so I spent from 8 p.m. until 2 a.m. 
going up and down ravines all over the 

1 Philip C. Lewis, Harvard; Indianapolis, Indiana. 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 85 

map. One time I struck a road which 
appeared to be taking me slap into the 
German lines, which was anything but 
pleasant. I returned twice to get further 
instructions, but no one knew anything, 
so finally I was told to turn in. Roche, Ed- 
wards, Imbrie, and Campbell all had the 
same experience that night. The trouble 
was that all the Divisions were being 
shifted and nobody knew where any of 
the "postes" were. Campbell did n't get 
back till nearly breakfast time. He had 
been called to Chuignes and Chuignelles to 
get three "blesses" and had found no one. 
I suppose that things will be straightened 
out in a day or two. I am off on the new 
Lamotte twenty-four hours' service to-day 
with Imbrie. 

June 6. Culbertson, Imbrie, and I went 
over to Mericourt to our old camping- 
ground and brought over the body of No. 
19 which we had left there. All the natives 
were delighted to see us and expressed sor- 
row that we were not to return. Espe- 
cially cordial were the two old ladies. We 
then crossed the canal and paid a visit to 



86 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

an English Captain (Duffy), who gave us 
tea and toast served on a table by an or- 
derly, with napkins and real china! Those 
English certainly go to war in great style ! 
He even had his two-room portable cabin 
decorated with pictures. I returned to find 
Vic White and Campbell in serious dis- 
cussion. It appears White's mother con- 
sulted some sort of palmist or medium, who 
told her her son would be in great danger 
in the latter part of June, which was easy 
enough to guess, as the big offensive is 
likely to start then. She had written to 
him to come home. Vic does n't want to 
worry her, so Campbell and I suggested 
his merely giving her the idea that he was 
not right at the Front, which after all is 
more or less true, as we only run up to the 
lines on certain routes, and are living about 
two miles back. Campbell then said he 
lately had been growing superstitious and 
that he had a feeling he was going to be 
killed. Odd for a man who has been in the 
war since the beginning ! He argued it all 
out on the doctrine of chances; he says 
that it's just for the very reason that he 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 87 

has been in the field longer than any of us 
that he is therefore more likely to get it 
in the neck than the newer men. He says 
if he pulls through the big offensive of this 
summer, he is going home, and White says 
he will go with him. Pete (who has no 
feelings of any kind) says he dreamed 
several times lately that some of the Sec- 
tion are going to be killed or wounded. Al- 
together the bunch are certainly pessimis- 
tic — but I fancy the cold, wet weather 
and the lack of work just now have most 
to do with it. 

June 8. Big train of great " 220 " mortars 
came by on their way to Chuignes this 
morning, eight of them drawn by huge 
Renault & Jeffery (American) , trucks, 
whose wheels in front, as well as rear, 
were tractors — the couplings of these to 
the carriages carrying the trails and "ca- 
mion" were the same as those on railways, 
and the carriages were made in Troy, Ohio. 
They shoot a shell five feet high weighing 
three hundred kilos, and carry about 
ten kilometers. They are meant only to 
reduce fortifications. 



88 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

I hear that the new Section (No. 8), 
sent out under Mason as chief, ran right 
into a gas attack at the very first crack. 
They are stationed in Champagne, and 
are said to have done remarkably well, 
especially as they were all new men. 

The big-gun train is camping here tem- 
porarily until the emplacements are 
finished. Everywhere house barracks and 
log protections are being erected and the 
country is simply alive with working men. 
One hundred "camions" turned up here 
to-day, of the largest size. They are just the 
ordinary service wagons for the " 8-270's " ! 
Another train of "220's" passed later. 
The gunners had amused themselves by 
naming them "Le Bourdon," "Le Gueu- 
leur," and so on. All their guns and their 
accessories are in the multi-colored tones 
of paint, green, ochre, black, and brown, 
and look like maps. One "camion" drags 
the base and turntable, another the gun 
itself; the rest, gasoline and ammunition. 

June 10. Dr. Maine and Peter Kemp 
turned up from Paris with two new cars. 
I went back to Cappy to-day. The roads 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 89 

are jammed, and we have to run for miles 
on the low gear behind the heavy artillery 
and ammunition trains. I had to tighten 
the low gear band twice yesterday and it 
is practically worn out. I will put in a new 
one in a day or two. Life in the barracks 
is amusing. Some of the men insist on talk- 
ing half the night, while others try to sleep, 
and still others keep their lamps lit late try- 
ing to read and write. The chief annoyance 
in fact is the utter lack of privacy. Roche 
and I came to a compromise with Cunning- 
ham and Campbell on the light question. 
They want all lights out at ten o'clock, 
so we said if they would stop talking at 
nine, we would " douse the glim "at eleven. 
Francklyn and Avard have an amusing 
arrangement to wake each other up in the 
morning. If one cannot arouse the other by 
quarter to seven, he has the privilege of 
tumbling him out of bed! The result is 
each watches the other like a cat when the 
alarm goes off and there is generally a reg- 
ular wrestling-bout. Yesterday morning 
Gyles broke Peter's bed, so Pete said he 'd 
tumble Gyles out at 2 a.m., the next night. 



90 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Gyles in self-protection built a barricade 
of bags and saw-horses around himself and 
slept on the floor on a stretcher. The 
great connecting link is "Vic," the fox 
terrier pup. The dog is sick just now, and 
they have been taking him to a veterinary 
and are nursing him like a baby. It's 
Pete's dog, but to devil him we all call it 
Francklyn's, which jars Pete extremely. 
Pete, who is considerably older than Gyles 
and has had a very varied career, roughing 
it all over the world, at first used to beat 
up Gyles pretty regularly and browbeat 
and bully him; but lately Gyles has dis- 
covered that he can lick Pete wrestling, 
so he has taken to issuing official com- 
muniques every morning as to the state 
of their bed war ! Latimer took them both 
in at checkers the other day and beat them 
easily, as they soon got squabbling over 
the proper moves to make. It certainly is 
better than a circus. Little Woodworth is 
the life of the party with his continual good 
humor, his songs and dances, and general 
liveliness, and we will be sorry to see him 
go in July when he returns to America. 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 91 

The place will be a gloom without him, 
as no one else in the squad is quite such a 
natural comedian. 1 Pete is also going. 

June 12. I have just finished lunch with 
a party of unusually jovial Frenchmen. 
One used to be first violin at the Carlton 
in London, and having borrowed the piano 
from Mile. Granger, he played accompani- 

1 Benjamin R. Woodworth, after Herbert P. Towns- 
end's departure early in 1917, became Chief of Section 
No. 1. On June 16, 1917, he accepted the invitation of 
Chatkhoff, an American aviator, to take a spin near the 
town of S. The plane side-slipped, and he was killed 
instantly, crushed beyond recognition. To W. Yorke 
Stevenson with whom he had grown to be on terms of 
intimate friendship, fell the sad duty of bringing his re- 
mains back to the Section's headquarters — a ghastly 
run of 100 miles. In a letter the author described the 
funeral as follows : — 

"Stockwell, Ned Townsend, Hibbard,and I were the 
pall-bearers. Had wonderful flowers as the boys spent all 
morning picking big bunches of red poppies, white roses, 
carnations and apple blossoms, and blue cornflowers. 
The coffin was draped with French and American flags, 
and the Croix de Guerre was pinned on it. 

" Shells were falling nearby as we lowered the coffin. 
It was just as he would have wished, and the American 
aviators were flying over his grave." 

Mr. Woodworth was most popular and much beloved 
by many. He was gifted with a sunny disposition 
and much ready wit. The Diary shows the regard in 
which the author held him. The latter succeeded him 
as Chief of Section No. 1. 



92 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

merits to a couple of others who sang war 
songs, etc. They were all much impressed 
with Peter Kemp's appearance. He is six 
feet five, as tall as Walter Wheeler, of Phil- 
adelphia, and heavier. We explained to 
them that that was the reason that Amer- 
ica does n't go to war — the average men 
are all about as big as Peter and it takes 
too long to dig trenches to fit 'em! 

In addition to the customary bombard- 
ment we are in the midst of a violent 
thunder and hail storm; the crashes of 
thunder and lightning mingling with the 
roar of the guns certainly is creating a real 
pandemonium. This makes one week so 
far of solid rain and the roads are almost 
impassable from mud and traffic com- 
bined. Everywhere are bogged autos and 
dead horses. The soldiers skin the latter 
for rugs and coats. "Rosalie" is the af- 
fectionate term the "poilus" apply to the 
new, long, four-cornered bayonet which 
makes a wound almost impossible to heal, 
as it cuts like a cross. "Rosalie" is also 
the name of the new paper method of 
smoking a pipe; a round-cut piece about 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 93 

the size of a tail light lens with a small hole 
in the center. The advantage is a cool and 
easy smoke without effort of drawing and 
good in a wind. 

The roads are so blocked that the food 
is slow to reach the Front just now. To- 
day, for instance, we were on half -rations 
here at Cappy. As we sat at our coffee, 
however, the "ravitaillement camions" 
turned up and there was great rejoicing. 
I saw "La Boiteuse " later to-day. She 's a 
great old girl; still as cheerful as ever and 
glad to have her piano in capable hands. 
She gave me some postcards of Cappy and 
a luck piece. She sent her love to Nelson. 

June 13. I got a call to Eclusier village 
at 2.30 a.m. The road along the canal 
was six inches deep in water and could 
hardly be told from the canal itself, except 
for the yellow color. The result was that 
it was quite daylight when I got there, and 
the Boches could see us loading the car 
(three " couches ") plainly, but they did n't 
fire. In fact they have been very quiet of 
late. The church at Eclusier is but an 
empty shell with great holes down through 



94 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

the sides and no roof to speak of — birds 
flit through the broken windows and the 
rain drops dismally on the floor. Most of 
the images are smashed, but the big stone 
font is still intact. The old graveyard be- 
side it is just a tangled mass of stones and 
weeds, while the new soldiers' graveyard 
was placed in two huge shell holes the 
sides of which have been graded like steps, 
and neat little crosses bear the records of 
the dead. Some fifty or more found places 
in the two holes, and yet there was re- 
spectable space between each grave and 
around the edges. Back to Villers-Bre- 
tonneux with the wounded and back at 
Cappy by 8 a.m.; the slowness due to 
weather and congested roads. 

Shoals of Senegalese are passing toward 
the Front, and it certainly looks as if the 
offensive was coming soon. The Russian 
victory in Galicia is said to be merely a 
diversion to help Italy just now and the 
real offensive has not even begun. 

I got stopped by what looked like the 
whole General Staff on the road to-day. 
They all had so many stripes it looked like 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 95 

a flock of zebras. A trooper had fallen off 
his horse and hit his head and they or- 
dered me to carry the unconscious man to 
Villers-Bretonneux. The car was already 
full, but I piled him in and took him along 
to save argument. Of course I had a 
hideous time at the hospital at Villers, 
not having a ticket for him. Nobody could 
take him in for an hour or so — the usual 
red-tape. 

The "brancardiers" tell me they have 
great difficulty with the wounded negroes, 
as they cannot explain how they feel; also 
the climate is very hard on them. 

The French "camion" drivers tell me 
that their well-known makes, such as Pan- 
hard, Fiat, Berliet, Renault, etc., are un- 
able to put in the same high-grade ma- 
terial in their cars as before the war, and 
that the American cars are regarded as 
quite as good if not better — especially 
the Pierce-Arrow, which is making quite 
a name for itself both here and in Russia. 
Five hundred of them passed here in long 
trains yesterday. 

I hear we are going to be shifted again; 



9Q AT THE FRONT IN A FiJVVER 

headquarters to be at Proyart and evacu- 
ate to the new hospital at Marcel Cave. 
This will be just before the big attack. At 
Marcel Cave the French have erected an 
enormous hospital on the railway. To 
illustrate what is expected, they have 
purchased from the town an additional 
site for a graveyard to accommodate five 
thousand dead, expected to be the casual- 
ties from this hospital alone — not froim 
the trenches, but those who cannot sur- 
vive treatment. This gives more of an ink- 
ling as to the preparation in our Sector 
than anything else I have seen. And our 
Sector only covers some three or four 
miles of the Front. 

June 14. I had an interesting talk with 
a Lieutenant to-day as we watched a regi- 
ment of Zouaves go up to the Front. He 
said that now that they were here together 
with the Colonials, the Senegalese, the 
Chasseurs d'Afrique, and the Twentieth 
Corps, the advance would not be long in 
coming. He says the Senegalese are aw- 
fully hard to handle. They won't stand 
shell fire, but don't mind machine guns, so 



PREPARING FOR BATTLE 97 

they put Frenchmen on either side of them, 
fifteen hundred Senegalese in each Divi- 
sion. They have strings of Boche ears 
which they keep as trophies. On the other 
hand, the "Germs" always kill the black 
wounded and prisoners, so it 's about fifty- 
fifty. This same officer says the big attack 
now depends entirely on the English. If 
they can only manage Champagne and 
Neuve Chapelle, stalemates will not be 
repeated. 

June 17. Red-Letter Day! The first 
hot bath in a tub since I've been at the 
Front! "Huts" Townsend, our Section 
Chief, took "Gimp" Cunningham and me 
in to Amiens. We simply wallowed in 
baths which only cost a franc. We did a 
little shopping and brought the boys back 
some cherry tarts for supper, for which we 
received loud cheers. Good old Pete Avard 
left to-day and took back an old car 
which, as usual, was stripped to the bone 
before it was allowed to go. The boys al- 
ways attack a car going down, like a bunch 
of ghouls. A new man turned up with 
Magoun, Little, by name, from Andover, 



98 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

and seems a decent sort. The fellows that 
sleep in the tent are not having such a 
pleasant time of it now. A whole regiment 
of artillery ("270's") has camped all 
around them, and the noise of men and 
horses keeps them awake all night long, 
and naturally they are afraid of thefts, 
particularly from the Senegalese; although 
the loft in which the rest of us sleep is 
dark and dirty, it is, at least, fairly safe 
from that sort of thing. The blacks love 
anything bright and shiny, like radiator 
caps or nickle-plated tools. With the ad- 
vance of the hour we all now have to get 
up at 5.30 instead of 6.30 and already sev- 
eral have been caught on the "no break- 
fast after 6.30" order. As we go to bed 
an hour earlier we '11 work into it all right 
soon, I suppose. 



CHAPTER VI 

"iLS NE PASSERONT PAS" 

If this little world to-night 
Suddenly should fall through space 
In a hissing, headlong flight, 
Shrivelling from off its face 
In an instant every trace 
Of all the little crawling things; — 
Ants, philosophers, and lice, 
Cattle, cockroaches, and kings, 
Beggars, millionaires, and mice, 
Men and maggots all as one 
As it falls into the Sun, — 
Who shall say that at the same 
Instant from a planet far 
A child may watch us and exclaim, 
"See the pretty shooting star!" 

Oliver Herford 

June 18. We saw a French aeroplane 
fall yesterday afternoon right near the 
camp at Villers-Bretonneux. The aviator 
trying to volplane too near the ground, the 
thing slipped sideways, and smashed into 
a field. My car was full, so I was of no 
use, but Woodworth happened to be pass- 
ing at the same time and ran out with a 
stretcher. For some time they could not 
get at the men on account of the flames 



100 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

and were forced to watch them burn to 
death. They say their cries were awful. 
One man managed to reach in and get 
hold of one of the aviator's arms to drag 
him out, but all the flesh came away in 
his hand. Woody carried one to the hos- 
pital, but he was dead when he got there. 
Of the other there was nothing left worth 
carrying. . . . "C'est la guerre!" 

June 20. Things are moving rapidly 
now. All "permissions" have been can- 
celed which kills any expectation of Paris 
on the 4th of July. Lewis got a splendid 
citation for the Croix, at Fontaine-Cappy, 
for bravery under fire. He was ordered to 
leave by the Medecin Chef, and refused to 
do so, because he had not completed his 
rounds. The old man was delighted with 
him and cited him the next day. We move 
to a camp in a field between two batteries 
at Chuignes and will evacuate to the big 
new barracks hospital at Marcel Cave. 
The grand attack is due to start in about 
a week and some of the fellows are talking 
of making their wills. I should worry! ! ! 
A new gun has appeared, a " 120" built on 



ILS NE PASSERONT PAS 101 

" 75 " principles, light carriage, oil recoil, 
and very mobile but shorter in the barrel, 
thereby bringing down the weight, I sup- 
pose. It must be a terror, as it is almost 
double the famous "soixante-quinze." We 
have been unable to buy a map of the coun- 
try between the Foies-Dompierre-Faucau- 
court line and Peronne anywhere, even in 
Amiens, so it looks as if that was to be 
the direction of the big push. 

End and I had a long walk to-day. He 
is an interesting chap. He was in Ser- 
bia with the Columbia Ambulance. We 
visited the two big aviation camps and 
watched them sighting one of Barclay 
Warburton's "Lewis" air-cooled mitrail- 
leuses. They have a sight much like the 
finder on a camera; it must be easy to aim 
with. We saw Farman and Condron planes, 
the latter with double "gnome" type- 
motors in front, the former with V-type 
twelve cylinder Renault motor aft. We did 
n't see any of the famous Nieuports, as 
they won't come from Verdun until the last 
moment, nor did we see the new self-start- 
ing Voisin planes. The orders are to " shed " 



102 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

everything but the barest necessities. We 
also saw the funeral of two aviators. It 
was quite impressive, with several Gen- 
erals walking behind the coffins, while 
one plane made the sign of the cross in the 
heavens above the grave. 

June 21. I am up at Cappy again, and 
got a call right off to Eclusier and mighty 
near fell into the canal, as some idiot had 
left a pile of wood for fuel in the road and 
in trying to go over it the car skidded one 
wheel over the bank. I just caught it with 
the brakes in time. 

Imbrie, as the only lawyer in the Squad, 
offers to make wills cheap for cash. One 
gets thinking about things like that in the 
face of what's coming. 

June 22. Most depressing news. We 
are to go to Verdun. We are shifted from 
the Colonials because they are to bear the 
brunt of the attack, and the cars which are 
necessary for the tremendous evacuation 
work must be the largest possible, while 
ours will be more useful on the bad roads 
around Verdun. Our evacuation center is 
Bar-le-Duc where Section No. 2 and the 



ILS NE PASSERONT PAS 103 

new No. 8 are stationed. I am sorry to 
have seen only the beginning of what must 
prove the biggest offensive of the war. On 
the other hand, I will be glad to be able to 
say I have been at Verdun, and the 250- 
mile trip across the country will prove 
most interesting. It means that we will 
travel from one end of the French battle 
line to the other, — truly a wonderful 
opportunity. 

June 23. Such a splendid trip! We 
came down through Senlis, the town where 
the Boches did their worst. They burned 
every tenth house, and shot the citizens, 
including the Mayor. Then we came along 
the valley of the Marne, and saw the whole 
of the great battlefield. A perfect day, and 
the Lieutenant ran slowly so that the 
"convoi" should get a chance to take in 
the views. At that, we are to-night at 
Chalons — some ride ! Every bone in my 
body aches and it's hard even to keep 
awake to write this. Woody got an awful 
spill. He nearly went to sleep, a very 
common thing after one has been driving 
for a great many hours — sort of hypno- 



104 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

tism ; his car turned turtle, but threw him 
clear. Paul also went to sleep, but saved 
himself. Imbrie nearly got ditched, too, 
doing the same thing. I find the only 
thing to do is to try to compose a letter or 
a verse or remember songs one half knows. 
It keeps one's mind out of that hypnotic 
rhythm. Here I am on a wonderful soft 
down bed with sheets! The Russians are 
here also. The lady of the house where I 
am quartered says that last night there was 
a Boche aeroplane raid, but it did no dam- 
age, except it made her baby cry with the 
noise. She says to-night it will be so sleepy 
it won't disturb me ! ! ! — After three 
months of the guns! — an amusing idea! 
The French kids are good little fellows. 
One insisted I should have a rose in my 
button-hole to-day. Everywhere they give 
one flowers or candy. Another led me all 
around the village of Pont-St.-Maxice by 
the hand, and all along the roads they al- 
ways, girls and boys, click their heels to- 
gether and give the military salute when 
we pass. 

June 24. My hostess charged "what- 



ILS NE PASSERONT PAS 105 

ever I chose to pay " for the room. I asked 
if two francs would suffice, and she agreed. 
In the morning she handed me a bottle 
wrapped up and told me to say nothing 
about it. She would accept nothing for it 
and when I opened it later I found it was 
a pint of champagne! Certainly nice of 
her. Board and lodging and champagne 
for two francs ! 

We passed many smashed-up villages 
to-day, including Sermaize and the fa- 
mous Vitry-le-Frangois, the turning-point 
of the battle of the Marne. We stopped 
at Trois-Fontaines and saw the ruins of 
a twelfth-century abbey, — wonderfully 
beautiful, — and the chateau of Trois- 
Fontaines belonging to the Count of 
Fontenoy. The Boches did not injure it 
for some strange reason. The abbey was 
ruined by the French Revolutionists. 

As we neared Bar-le-Duc we passed the 
Tenth Cavalry, every man leading an 
extra horse. All the horses are little, quick- 
acting animals of the polo pony type. They 
looked very efficient. We also passed the 
Seventy-ninth "de ligne" returning from 



106 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

the Front. The men were haggard and 
done, but a fine-looking lot. Ten days 
should put them on their toes again. After 
one of our caravans goes through a sec- 
tion of country, the "pays" breaks out in 
spots with Ford sores for days. We have 
only "shed" five altogether and two are 
due to rejoin to-night. Woody broke his 
front and Edwards his back axle. Bow- 
man burned out a bearing, Little broke a 
front wheel, and Lathrop had carburetor 
trouble. There were, of course, the usual 
lot of blow-outs. I had two, but was able 
to rejoin each time without losing my 
position in the line for more than a few 
minutes. Each man carries a part of the 
general extras on a hike. I was lucky in 
drawing the tire supply, which saved me 
many minutes, as I used the tires lying 
loose in the car rather than undo my care- 
fully packed-away spares. 

June 25. We arrived at Bar-le-Duc yes- 
terday afternoon at 5 o'clock, and had our 
tents up and kitchen working by 6 p.m., 
to the astonishment of a neighboring "ca- 
mion" section. We turned in at 9 o'clock. 



ILS NE PASSERONT PAS 107 

At 11 p.m. a call came to go at once to Ver- 
dun, as there had been a big gas attack. 
We chucked everything out of our cars, 
got masks and "tin derbys," and beat it. 
We made the outskirts of Verdun (fifty kil- 
ometers) by 1 a.m. over fearful roads and 
not a car broke down, though there were 
several blow-outs. We ran into the Norton 
Section and our No. 2. They were very 
much surprised — as they knew we had 
only arrived that evening — to find us 
right on the job. As we loaded the cough- 
ing men into the cars, the guns were going 
like mad and a terrific explosion occurred 
— either a mine or a powder depot. The 
whole sky was bright, as when Du Pont's 
powder mills blew up at Wilmington last 
winter and we saw it in Philadelphia, — 
except this time it was quite close. 

Each car took five men and we landed 
them back at Bar-le-Duc as the day was 
breaking. Little burned out a bearing, 
but otherwise we made the return trip 
without accidents, at a very fast clip. In 
fact, too fast for the good of the cars, but 
the Lieutenant wanted to make a good 



108 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

impression at the start. The thing really 
developed into a race. Claxon horns, extra 
tires, and all sorts of loose objects fell off, 
and I think we got even some of the sol- 
diers nervous. I had two bottles of beer 
lying between the fender and the body 
of the car, which Baylies had asked me to 
carry the previous day, and in the hurry 
of the moment and the dark I forgot about 
them. As we beat it along at sixty kilo- 
meters an hour, I began to hear a new 
knock in my engine. I thought the 
wretched old thing had every known 
knock already from piston slap to main 
bearing bang, but this clink was a new 
one. It got no worse nor less, whether up 
grade or down, and I thought, "Well, as 
ever, a Ford is full of infinite resources for 
surprise"! When we got to Verdun I be- 
gan oiling up, and there were the two 
bottles and the explanation of the knock. 
Believe me, we did n't do a thing to them ! 
The funny part of it was the boys thought 
I had great foresight in bringing them 
along. 

To-day we are taking things easy and 



ILS NE PASSERONT PAS 109 

awaiting orders. The man who sat be- 
side me told me that the reason they got 
caught by the gas was that they had taken 
their masks off in order to see more clearly, 
as the ground was treacherous and full of 
shell-holes, and some of the gas was still 
lurking in the low places. We all went 
to bed at 7 a.m. and slept until Roche was 
awakened by something licking his face. 
Thinking it was one of the dogs, he just 
gave it a slap, and then the whole tent 
nearly collapsed ! A stray cow had drifted 
in and tried to get acquainted! The riot 
that followed set all thought of further 
sleep at an end, so we started in tinkering 
with the cars and generally shaking down. 
Temporarily, our camp is pitched on the 
grounds of an old chateau at a little place 
called Veel, just out of Bar-le-Duc. 

June 27. No rest for the wicked. We had 
only just got thoroughly repaired and 
straightened out after our first trip, when 
we were called out again: this time to a 
little east of Verdun at 3 a.m. Well, we 
galloped out over that awful road again, 
dodging two solid lines of "camions" and 



110 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

guns for the whole fifty kilometers. The 
French, by the way, call it the "Voie 
Sacree" (Sacred Way), as, when the rail- 
road was cut, the use of this road for carry- 
ing supplies saved Verdun. Nobody got 
into much trouble, however, except La- 
throp who broke his brake, and as he was 
the next behind me he kept bumping into 
me steadily. When we got to Dugny we 
found it packed with ambulances. There 
had been another gas attack. I ran into 
Mason, head of the new Section No. 8, 
and several other fellows from Sections 
2 and 3. Also the English "St. Johns" 
Section composed of Quakers who do not 
believe in fighting. 

Chapman, the American airman, was 
killed yesterday near here. He shot down 
three Boches before he got his own. We 
saw his wrecked plane. 

Section 8's cars were a sight. It was a 
shame, as they were new only three or 
four weeks ago; but, of course, they were 
nearly all new drivers and were bound to 
get smashed in such traffic. Most of their 
fenders and side boxes were ripped off as 



ILS NE PASSERONT PAS 111 

well as lamps and radiators which were 
broken or bent. One of the men was 
wounded and two were unable to stand 
the strain and have returned to Paris. 
We got back here at noon, starving, as 
we had no breakfast, and got busy fixing 
up the cars: three broken front axles and 
one back axle. All I had to do was to clean 
out the carbon and grind the valves. We 
got mail at last this p.m., the first in 
nearly two weeks. It develops that the 
reason we were sent for was only partly to 
concentrate the American Ambulance, but 
also for the purpose of replacing a French 
Section of twenty cars, of which only ten 
are now working and whose drivers are 
about all in. Five of the men got caught 
in a tunnel the other night when two 
Austrian "380's" exploded one at either 
end and a third on top. The air concus- 
sion threw them some fifteen or twenty 
feet, first one way and then the other, 
while not only the glass headlights, but 
even the floor boards of their cars were 
blown in! 



112 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Copy of letter dated 6 mai, 1916 

1 6T Corps d'Armte Coloniale — 2 me Division. 

Au nom du Directeur du Service de Sante du l er 

Corps d'Armee Coloniale, et a son nom personnel le 

Medecin Divisionnaire de la 2 me Division Coloniale, 

felicite M. le Sous-Lieut, de Kersauson et ses conduc- 

teurs de la Section Sanitaire Americaine N° 1, pour 

l'empressement digne d'eloges avec lequel dans la nuit 

du 4 et celle du 5 Mai, 1916, ils ont assure Pevacuation 

des blesses des postes de recueil de Cappy et de 1 'Eclusier. 

Le Medecin Principal de l^ e classe, MSdecin Div. 

Emily. 
Q. G. le 6 mai, 1916. 

Copy of letter dated 10 juillet, 1916 

Quartier General, l er Corps d'Armee Coloniale. 
Direction du Service de Sante, le Medecin principal 
du l er Colonial, Lasnet, Directeur du Service de 
Sante du l er C. & C, au Lieut, de Kersauson, 
S.S.A.U. No. 1. 
Au moment ou la S.S.A.U. No. 1 est appelee a suivre 
une autre destination, le Directeur du Service de 
Sante adresse au Lieut, de Kersauson et a, tout le per- 
sonnel de la Section ses chaleureuses felicitations pour 
le zele, le courage, et l'activite inlassable dont tous 
ont fait preuve pendant leur sejour sur le secteur du 
l er Colonial. 

Les troupes Coloniales ont su apprecier le devoue- 
ment des Volontaires Americains et elles leur en gardent 
une vive reconnaissance. C'est avec un profond regret 
qu'elles les ont vu partir, et elles n'oublieront pas de 
longtemps les conducteurs hardis, habiles, et empresses 
qui venaient enlever leurs blesses j usque dans les 
postes des secours les plus avances. 

(Signe) Lasnet. 




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ILS NE PASSERONT PAS 113 

Copy of letter dated 4 aout, 1916 

Le Medecin Major Saint-Paul, Medecin chef de la 
127 e Division, au Lieutenant Commandant le 
S.S.A.U. N°- 1, Lieut, de Kersauson. 

Mon Cher Camarade: — J'ai ete extremement con- 
trarie lorsque j'ai appris que votre section quittait la 
127 e Division. Pendant les journees dures que j'ai pas- 
sees avec elle, je me suis assure que cette section four- 
nissait un service parfait et faisait preuve du plus beau 
courage militaire, d'une intrepidite digne d'admiration 
dans les terrains les plus severement battus par le feu. 
Vos Conducteurs sont des gens animes d'un esprit de 
devouement digne des plus grandes eloges; flegma- 
tiques, braves, d'une education excellente et, ce qui 
ajoute encore a leurs merites, d'une modestie singu- 
liere. 

Je vous adresse done toutes mes felicitations pour 
la fagon dont vous dirigez ce corps d'elite, n'hesitant 
jamais a payer de votre personne et a donner 1 'example 
du courage et du devouement. J'ai remarque les 
memes qualites chez votre adjoint M. Townsend auquel 
je vous prie d'adresser ainsi qu' a votre personnel et 
en particulier a M. Campbell mes souvenirs affectueux. 

Bien cordialement, 

Saint-Paul. 



CHAPTER VII 

VERDUN 

For history 's hushed before them, 
And legend flames afresh; 
Verdun, the name of thunder 
Is written on their flesh. 

Laurence Binyon 

June 29. We have been moved to 
Dugny on the Meuse, six kilometers from 
Verdun. It is to be our headquarters like 
Mericourt and Bayonvillers, and we are to 
run up to the "postes de secours" from 
here. We were taken to Fort Tavannes, 
the cabaret, and other " postes de secours." 
While at the cabaret the Germans began 
shelling the series of batteries which were 
all along the road. Some twenty huge (at 
least, they seemed huge to us) shells fell 
around us. This was the heaviest shell-fire I 
have yet been under, and I sure was glad to 
have something to do to keep my mind off 
of it. Two men about one hundred yards 
away were decapitated and there were a 
number of dead horses about. I can see 



VERDUN 115 

we are going to have a lively time. Coming 
back, an incendiary shell set a big house 
on fire on the outskirts of Verdun, and the 
shells came whirring rapidly. We passed 
several smashed ammunition wagons and 
one ambulance all in pieces. After dinner 
we saw some German prisoners going by. 
They had just been captured and were a 
bedraggled lot, but were neither extremely 
young nor extremely old, indicating that 
there is still a pretty good " bunch " of 
Boches left. We started in our service 
this evening and calls began to come in 
right at dinner-time. We send a car out 
every twenty-five minutes at night, but 
in the daytime we go every hour and a 
half. There is practically no "repos." 
Alternate days we do "Bureau" calls, in- 
terchanging with Section 8, which takes 
on the regular cabaret run. 

One gets some astonishing directions 
when one is working in a new country at 
night. For instance, in going to Fort Ta- 
vannes, which is now being shelled by the 

Germans, I was told to go along the — 

road, until I passed two smells and then 



116 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

turn to the left. This referred to two piles 
of dead horses. Some Russians tried to 
escape from Metz last night and two suc- 
ceeded. The Russian force is not just 
around here apparently. At least I hear 
nothing of them. 

Some Section 2 men drifted into town 
to-day. They are working on the Mort 
Homme and Hill 304. I went over with 
End, who talks German, to see the pris- 
oners. They are not such a bad-looking 
lot — they are well built and wiry, and 
they don't look ill-fed. Neither were they 
depressed, but answered questions freely, 
looking us straight in the eyes. Their 
average age was twenty-four to twenty- 
five, and they said they had not been 
shifted back and .forth as is so often re- 
ported, but had been here right along. Al- 
together I got an impression that they 
were right on the job. They were all sur- 
prised to find we were Americans and not 
English. 

The country just behind the front lines 
is littered with broken cars, smashed 
wagons, and dead animals. Nobody has 



VERDUN 117 

time to take them away. We gathered in 
some useful springs and an anvil to-day 
and hope to tow in a whole "camion" 
shortly that looks as if it could be made to 
run. Verdun itself is pretty well shot to 
pieces. I noticed a marble statue of Na- 
poleon standing up in a hole above the 
street which used to be a window in a 
house. It creates a rather impressive ef- 
fect, as it looks out over the ruins and 
desolation toward the smoking, rocking 
hills. 

June 30. Edwards had a close call last 
night. A shell exploded right over his car 
and a dozen pieces were cut through the 
top and sides; even went through the 
tool box under his seat and perforated his 
oil can, yet not one touched him. He con- 
tinued to work all night, and should get 
the Croix, except that we are new here and 
the Lieutenant may not cite him. 1 

Bowman carried a Division Commander 
whose leg was cut off by a "77." He died 
in the car in the arms of his orderly, whose 

1 L. Brooke Edwards, of Philadelphia, did get the 
Croix de Guerre. 



118 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

only words were, "It's too bad, too bad,to 
be killed by a mere ' 77 ' after all he 's been 
through." Nothing under a "130" is re- 
garded as amounting to much around 
here. 

Latimer broke an axle in a shell-hole; 
Woodworth fell into one, too, and had to 
be hauled out. The trouble is, the new 
holes are made between the time one goes 
out and comes back, and so they fool one. 
Thiaumont seems to be the Boche objec- 
tive just now. It has changed hands four 
times already. 

July 1. A chance of six days' Paris " per- 
mission," due to-day, is gone. Goodness 
knows when I will get a holiday now, and 
I certainly had looked forward to the 4th 
in Paris. Well, there will be no lack of 
noisy celebration around here, but not ex- 
actly as "safe and sane" as in the States. 
Woody goes to-day. I'm terribly sorry. 
He 's the best friend I 've made in the Sec- 
tion. I shall send the second and third 
parts of this diary by him. 

We have now three dogs attached to 
the Section. Besides "Vic," Magoun has 



VERDUN 119 

picked up a little woolly one at Bayon- 
villers; while Bowman got a sad sort of 
mongrel pointer along the road to Bar-le- 
Duc. They are really more trouble than 
they are worth, as they continually get 
lost, while at night they come nosing into 
the men's blankets and get kicked out to 
the accompaniment of the usual yelping. 
Fleas, of course, also help ! There are signs, 
I see, of another joining the squad here. 
It looks somewhat like a young hyena 
and is hanging around the cantonment. 
The tame crows and fox of the "camion" 
drivers at Bayonvillers were amusing and 
could be caged, but these pups are con- 
tinually escaping. What with our three 
tents, the Zouave, " Lizzie," and the varied 
menagerie, we certainly are assuming the 
aspect of a traveling circus. 

July 2. I had an amusing trip with a 
Captain this morning. I had been running 
all night from Tavannes and the cabaret. 
The Germans made an attack near Vaux 
and our "tir de barrage" stopped it. We 
drove past some one hundred guns, " 75's " 
and "105's," whose muzzles project over 



120 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

the road, and when they fire as we pass 
in an incessant "tir rapide," the noise is 
enough to break the ear drums. I stuff 
cotton in my ears and keep my mouth 
open. The sheets of flame come half across 
the road and the concussion has even 
broken some of the little windows in the 
cars. 

Well, this Captain was at Dugny and 
asked me to take him up to Tavannes, as 
he was on his way to the front lines. Being 
daylight it was against our official rules; 
but, individually, we endeavor to be of as 
much aid as we can to the army and often 
waive such rules. When we passed the 
cabaret we could see the German "sau- 
cisses," and, of course, they could see us. 
At Tavannes, the Captain suggested that 
I carry him on to the Mardi Gras redoubt 
close to the lines and in plain sight. I told 
him I was "under his orders," so we pro- 
ceeded, passing more dead horses and all 
sorts of smashed stuff, and winding our 
way around huge craters. At last we got 
there. In thanking me he said some com- 
plimentary things, and remarked that he 



VERDUN 121 

had asked a member of another Ambu- 
lance Section to take him up here a few 
days ago, and that he had refused, although 
it was still only dawn. 

Incidentally I picked up three " blesses " 
at the redoubt who were about to be taken 
the couple of miles down to the cabaret 
"poste de secours" on "pousse-pousses," 
little two-wheeled pushcarts which carry 
one stretcher. This meant the saving of an 
hour or more for them. When I got back 
here, I found Will Irwin and another mag- 
azine writer being shown the fighting by 
Piatt Andrew. Unfortunately they missed 
the " tir de barrage " which, alone, is worth 
crossing the ocean to see. A solid line of 
flame several kilometers long, crowned by 
exploding shrapnel and all kinds of colored 
lights and flares and a noise so deafening 
as to make one's head reel and one's brain 
stop working. There were eleven hundred 
guns working just as fast as they could 
(about twenty-five shots a minute) for an 
hour in the space of about two square 
miles. No words of mine can do justice to 
that "tir de barrage" across the Etain 



122 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

road. I have been scared in my life, but 
never like that. The German "incomers" 
one regards as luck. One hears the warning 
whistle and thinks it's coming right at one, 
and it falls a hundred yards away. Again 
one hears the whistle and regards it as dis- 
tant — and she blows up right beside one. 
There 's a cheerful uncertainty that means 
bad luck if one is hit; but when obliged to 
drive in front, within twenty feet, of those 
"75's," and others, with the flame ap- 
parently surrounding you, and unable to 
hear or think for the stunning noise, you 
don't know whether the motor is going, 
and you also wonder where the wads are 
going. They, alone, are enough to kill a 
man. You also hope the gunners are on 
to their job, as some new recruit might 
aim a foot too low! Then, occasionally, a 
badly timed shot bursts at the muzzle, 
which means exactly above the car. Be- 
lieve me, I'd rather take a chance with 
the erratic "Germ" incomers than to 
have to pass that often. If I get out of this 
without being permanently deaf, I'll be 
lucky. 



VERDUN 123 

Just as the old Fokkers beat all other 
war planes and the Nieuports beat the 
Fokkers in point of speed, the Boches 
have suddenly, within the last few days, 
introduced a new Fokker much faster 
than the fastest Nieuport. Johnston, one 
of the American Ambulance men who 
went into the Aviation Corps, and is in the 
camp at Bar-le-Duc, told Sponagle to-day 
that he and his squadron were caught by 
surprise over the German lines, and only 
escaped by the greatest luck. The French 
and English, of course, will immediately 
start to build an even faster plane, but 
temporarily the supremacy of the air ap- 
pears to have been snatched from the Al- 
lies and even our own aviators admit it. 

The French batteries are certainly beau- 
tifully concealed. One can only spot them 
at night by the flashes. In the daytime 
they shoot and shoot and one never sees 
them. 

July 3. George End this morning saw a 
man killed by the shock of a "210" on 
the road into Verdun. The "Germs" 
were attacking Thiaumont again. The 



124 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

shell exploded just beside the road and 
the man was n't even touched, but was 
killed by the shock. 

Funny the directions the fellows give 
each other as to the safest roads to take! 
End, of course, advised me not to go to 
the cabaret by way of Verdun, but to go 
through the woods where Edwards was 
hit. Ten minutes later Francklyn came 
in and said to be sure to take the road 
through Verdun, as the Germans were 
shelling h — 1 out of the "casernes" on the 
wood road, and to be careful. Imbrie, 
with his usual cheerfulness, remarked: 
"Careful! Careful! Good Lord, how's 
anybody going to be careful? If we 
wanted to be careful we should have 
been careful not to leave America!" 

July 4. My idea of nothing to do is to 
go out under shell-fire in the pouring rain. 
That's what Squad A of Section 1 has 
been doing all day. It rains thirty days 
out of each thirty-one in the month, and 
in those months that have only thirty 
days, it is n't clear at all. 

While we were swimming in the Meuse 



VERDUN 125 

yesterday, we saw a Boche aeroplane at- 
tack one of the fifteen "saucisses" around 
Verdun and in a few moments the thing 
burst into flame and fell like a plummet. 
The observer was killed. 

The French chased the aviator, but he 
got away. 

Imbrie is certainly a scream. He re- 
marked to-day that on going out on his 
run to the "poste" the road was O.K., but 
coming back he saw a fresh-killed horse. 
He said: "Now, that's the sort of thing 
that causes one to stop and reflect, but 
I did n't. I jammed down both levers 
and did my reflecting at forty miles an 
hour!" There are a number of Philadel- 
phia cars in Sections 1 and 8. Two new 
ones from the Huntingdon Valley Country 
Club came up yesterday. There is one 
from Henry Brinton Coxe, and one from 
John K. Mitchell, one from the Univer- 
sity Club, one from J. H. McFadden, one 
from George F. McFadden, and one from 
Clement B. Newbold. 

Great news! The Government has 
awarded forty-eight hours' "permission" 



126 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

to all Americans in the army to allow 
them to celebrate the 4th of July. Only 
five of our Section are allowed to go, how- 
ever, but as my regular "permission" was 
due July 1st, along with Roche, Lewis, 
Paul, and Edwards, we were the five se- 
lected. Section 8 is allowing eleven men 
off; but, of course, they have been here 
longer and deserve it more. All the avia- 
tors and all the other Sections are letting 
men go down, and, believe me, we'll have 
big times in Paris. The Boches got Thiau- 
mont this morning; but I guess that's 
about all for them if the Somme offensive 
continues to progress. 

July 5. I arrived in Paris yesterday 
with five to ten men from each of the 
American Ambulance Sections and some 
Norton men, and saw all the old bunch 

of fellows at Henri's, including , who 

invited me to dinner at Maxim's. He gets 
his divorce to-day! This morning, after 
a hectic night, I stopped at the hospital to 
see our wounded "ambulanciers," espe- 
cially Hollingshead, of the Norton Squad, 
who came over on the steamer with me. He 



VERDUN 127 

got hit on the shoulder at Bras, near the 
Mort Homme; but is coming around all 
right. The three "blesses" whom he was 
carrying were killed and the car was 
smashed. The two Frenchmen were bur- 
ied, but they left the body of the Boche 
lying in the ambulance for the Germans 
to find. They were thought to be about to 
capture the place at the time, but I be- 
lieve have since been pushed back. I saw 
several other wounded American Ambu- 
lance men including the new fellow from 
Section 8 who had only been at the Front 
about twenty-four hours before he got a 
piece of shrapnel in the arm. Barber, the 
Section 4 man who got an "eclat" in his 
stomach, will recover, after all. 

July 9. I got back yesterday and 
worked on the car all day putting in a 
new engine. Ned Townsend returned; he, 
Roche, and Paul bringing up some new, or 
rather rebuilt, cars. They are not balls of 
fire by any means; but anything is better 
than driving some of the old cripples they 
heretofore have handed us. George End 
is down with dysentery, and some of the 



128 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

others also complain of it, Vic White 
particularly. 

We had to shoot the little woolly dog. 
Its ribs were crushed by a car, poor little 
beggar ! Section 8 has gone "en repos "and 
we are now working with new English and 
French Sections. We have had no trouble 
whatever in holding up our end so far. An 
attack on Souville last night was repulsed. 
Ned Townsend was up there, and had a 
splinter clink off his "tin derby"; the 
first time I've actually known of their 
being useful to us except to keep the rain 
off. In the trenches when only the head 
is exposed, of course, they are very useful; 
but judging from the general line of solid 
ivory nuts we Ve got with us, other parts 
of the body require more protection than 
the dome! 

I've become very humble of late. I, 
honestly, never realized what an awful ass 
I must have been at the start until (en- 
tirely involuntarily) I was forced to listen 
to the idiotic drool pulled by some of the 
new men in the watches of the night. They 
all regard themselves as young Atlases 




NELSON, EDWARD TOWNSEND, AND ROCHE 




LOADING AN AMBULANCE WITH THE HELP OF A GERMAN 
PRISONER 



VERDUN 129 

supporting France and the world through 
the grace of God and Ford. And oh, those 
eternal arguments about the whateverness 
of whichever ! — or words to that effect — 
when all that it is necessary for them to 
know and do, is to crank a car and steer 
it to where they are told to go! 

July 10. Having had swims in the 
Somme, the Marne, and the Meuse, we 
are now looking forward to a paddle on 
the Rhine. I have a hunch that before 
very long there may be an attack to the 
east of Verdun beyond the St.-Mihiel 
salient, or possibly right there. My only 
reason for this is the advent of fresh 
Senegalese and other Colonial attacking 
troops, such as we saw on the Somme. 
Also the Russians on this front are yet to 
be heard from, while their brethren on the 
other side are doubtless doing as well. 
Bonne nouvelle! I have been given a 
new car; not a made-over wreck, but a real 
new one. 

July 11, 4 a.m. I am writing here at 
the Etain-Moulinville cross-road beside 
a dead and odoriferous horse. Watching 



130 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

the dawn break and listening to the whin- 
ing of the shells from both sides pass- 
ing overhead, and now and then one 
breaking entirely too near for comfort is, 
believe me, no place for a nervous child! 
I 'm simply writing this to keep my mind 
off the crape and " don't-he-look-natural- 
please-omit-flowers " stuff! It's cold, and 
it's going to rain, and these blessed 
" brancardiers " are late with their trench 
"pousse-pousses." I'm also hungry and 
I'd give a quarter for a fifteen-cent drink; 
and I'd as leave have it at the Racquet 
Club in old Philly as here. Just now the 
Boches are firing "210's" which are land- 
ing in the ravine a hundred yards away. 
I hope they '11 keep perfectly accurate and 
are not going to give any raw greenhorns 
practice. I entirely sympathize with the 
fellow in Bairnsfather's famous cartoon: 
"There'll be dirty work at the cross-road 
to-night." 

Later. It appears that one of the shells 
I listened to lit close to "Huts" Town- 
send 's car at the Tavannes cross-road and 
nearly crowned old Roger. They came up 



VERDUN 131 

and ordered me to return, as I had stayed 
over my allotted time. 

In the afternoon, the Lieutenant, Spo- 
nagle, and I went up to Fort Dugny and 
had the luck to see another attack on Sou- 
ville. For once it was clear and the sight 
was marvelous. The whole hill smoked. 
We also saw the American Escadrille go 
into action, six of them; but they disap- 
peared in the smoke far back of the Ger- 
man lines. The big bombardment was 
followed by a gas attack between Vaux 
and Douaumont, and the fight was fierce 
all night, around Damloup. We began to 
get calls around 5 a.m. and, thereafter, ran 
all day under heavy fire. I saw a bully 
" 155 " shell on the road and wanted to pick 
it up, and had already slowed down, when 
one burst within thirty feet of the car — I 
changed my mind and moved on ! Nearly 
all the men we carried were ' ' gassed . ' ' They 
kept coming in all day from the trenches, 
or rather shell holes, in the Bois Fumant 
and Froide Terre near Fleury. We alone 
carried some twelve hundred of them, and 
believe me, it was some strain. 



132 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Many new dead horses along the road. 
The gas gets them, even the smallest 
whiff, and, of course, they have no masks. 
Even at 10 a.m. there was still enough gas 
to make our eyes smart. The Germans 
tried a new dodge, — a sort of "tir de 
barrage " of " 77 " gas shells. They do not 
make much noise, just about as much as a 
yacht cannon, but the gas spreads fast. It 
was about forty feet high and extended for 
about two hundred meters along the Etain 
road. The men who were caught by it all 
admitted they had taken off their masks 
for one reason or another. Some get sick 
at their stomachs and that forces them to 
take off their masks. It is not amusing to 
talk to men who don't know they're as 
good as dead! One really should have 
two masks, and switch in such a case, not 
breathing meantime. We all have had 
another one issued to us to-day. 

The work became exactly like a road 
race. At our cantonment, after deliver- 
ing the wounded, we had a table on which 
were coffee and crackers. There were ex- 
tra tires, oil, water, and gasoline, and the 



VERDUN 133 

mechanics all ready to put them in. We 
made eleven round trips during the day 
from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Some cars only carry 
five and some six, so that the total wounded 
carried would have been over eleven hun- 
dred if all had been going perfectly. Dur- 
ing the night we necessarily worked slower, 
but carried some nine hundred, I should 
judge. I broke a spring clip which de- 
tained me a little while, and I lost about a 
half-hour around noon, but made it up 
later. The doings of the last two days are 
chronicled more or less in the "official com- 
muniques." The bombardment being dig- 
nified by the term — "Extreme violence." 

The Germans again got within five hun- 
dred yards of Tavannes, by the use of 
gas. This evening, at 6.30 p.m., without 
artillery preparation, the French coun- 
ter-attack was made and was entirely 
successful. Not only was all lost ground 
regained, but they captured some one 
hundred prisoners, several machine guns, 
etc. The leaving out of the artillery 
preparation entirely fooled the Boches. 

As the hospitals are overflowing, we have 



134 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

had to take in a lot of the gassed men with 
us in our cantonment. It is pathetic to 
hear them try to get their breath as if they 
were drowning; also it's not conducive to 
sleep. I carried the Commandant who was 
in the attack. He had a piece of shell in 
his stomach, but he was a brave beggar. 
Never said a word, and thanked me when 
I apologized for the jolting he got. The 
u Germs" got the Damloup redoubt to- 
day. 

We nearly had a scrap of our own just 
now. One man implied that another had 
been running less than the rest. He was 
sent to call him and found him sleeping 
while all the others were on the road. We 
had to pull them apart. It is due to over- 
work, overexcitement, strain. Every one's 
nerves are on edge. 

It's wonderful to see the French artil- 
lery in action. Our "poste" at the cabaret 
is entirely surrounded by batteries; and to 
see the relief come galloping up, split in 
fours, and each go dashing out into the 
fields by the pale light of a clouded moon, 
is a sight one can never forget. In about 



VERDUN 135 

two minutes they are unhooked and old 
Mr. Boche is receiving "billets-doux de 
soixante-quinze." 

We were ordered to move to rejoin the 
Division which has been "en repos" about 
a week. The Boches started shelling the 
railway station with the Skoda "380's" 
this afternoon; but everybody was too 
sleepy even to go up to photograph it. 
They never hit it, anyway, and the old 
peasant women continue to tend their 
gardens all around the huge shell holes. 
All through the valley back of Tillat, Ta- 
vannes, the Mort Homme, and so forth, 
the peasants till their fields under shell- 
fire. Now and then they lose a horse 
through asphyxiating gas; but otherwise 
they don't give a curse for the Germans. 

July 13. We leave in caravan to-day 
to rejoin our Division "en repos" at a 
little village outside of Bar-le-Duc. The 
heavy fighting has died down again and 
now everything is quiet. We have received 
quite a lot of praise for our work through 
the gas attack. The new location is Tan- 
nois, just outside of Bar-le-Duc. We are 



136 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

beautifully situated in a little valley, with 
a clear mountain spring, ripe cherry trees, 
and wild strawberries everywhere. We 
all celebrated the day with champagne, 
and Pierre got fresh with the Lieutenant 
and was given twenty-four hours in jail; 
but to-morrow being the 14th, the sen- 
tence really only holds good for a few 
hours, as all minor offenders are to be re- 
leased. The Lieutenant knew that before 
he sent Pierre to jail. The " Loot," as every 
one calls him, is really one of the best of 
fellows, and knows just how to handle 
the men so that they don't feel too much 
restraint, and yet are kept well in hand. 
Roche and I go to Paris on our long-de- 
layed "permissions" to-morrow. Winsor 
is going down on sick-leave. End joins us 
to-morrow. He leaves for good, after two 
years' service, partly in Serbia. 

We had a mock marriage to-day with a 
little girl in an "epicerie" shop, — who 
was tickled to death and got right into the 
spirit of it, — and Sam Paul. Sam was so 
rattled he could n't say or do anything 
but blush ! Josh Campbell was the Master 



VERDUN 137 

of Ceremonies and it was a scream ! They 
bathed the old Zouave cook, De Vaux, 
in champagne. 

The "Loot" is tickled to death with 
the way the Section went through the at- 
tack. He received an awfully nice letter 
from the General of the Division, and he 
told Roche and me coming down in the 
train that he believed the whole Section 
might get cited — a very unusual thing. 
It appears that we broke the record for 
the number of wounded carried dur- 
ing twenty-four hours in that Sector, or 
something of the sort. Culbertson got off 
a classic to-day. He was talking of heavy 
shell-fire coming in, and of being scared, 
and somebody asked him the size of it. 
He replied, "Oh, I guess about a ' 105 ' or, 
you know, a '380' Bowman"! We speak 
of the "77's" and "105's" as "380 Bow- 
mans" now. 1 

July 17. Trouville and a salt bath. A 
thing I've forgotten to mention is the 
staining of the white horses a sort of sorrel. 

1 Bowman was a young man in whose eyes things 
loomed large. Hence the joke. 



138 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

What reminded me of it just now was the 
way they are fading, on account of the 
months of rain. Here in Trouville they 
are becoming a sort of pale "baby pink." 
Some of the dead horses around Verdun 
also have been washed almost white again 
by the rain. They are very useful land- 
marks at night. 

I have seen more pathetic sights here 
than almost anywhere else. The Trou- 
ville and Deauville casinos are conva- 
lescent hospitals. Most of the big hotels 
are also. I was driving along the land 
just back of the beach, past the fine-look- 
ing private villas, when we came to a 
series of the same sort which looked like 
"Little Italy," with the clothes hanging 
out and the babies all over everything and 
small chimneys sticking out of the win- 
dows, the regular New York tenement 
look. I asked what on earth it was doing 
in the middle of Trouville, and was told 
that it was part of the Belgian refugee 
camp sections, which are scattered all 
along the northwest coast. One almost 
has to apologize for not being a cripple at 



VERDUN 139 

Trouville. It's terrible to stand the looks 
of scorn! But one can't stop and explain 
to each individual that one has been dodg- 
ing shells at Verdun for two weeks, and is 
only on a two-days' "permission" here. 



CHAPTER VIII 

"en repos" 

France, you may pin sparse tokens with war-tried fingers 
to the breasts that lift beneath eyes that look to you living 
and dying. 

But the decoration you have set in these faces belongs to 
millions that march and that serve you still, living or dead. 

John Curtis Underwood 

Paris, July 24. Old End finally left. 
He was a good fellow. I remember the 
time when he forgot the password for 
the bridge at Cappy, which the Germans 
were diligently trying for with "77's" 
and "105's." The sentry stopped him, of 
course, asking the word, and in his slow, 
drawling, vague way George said in Eng- 
lish, which, of course, the sentry could n't 
understand, "I don't remember exactly, 
but it seems to me it sounded something 
like 'Motor Boat."' The word was "Mon- 
tauban." What with the noise of the 
bursting shells and the rest, the sentry 
simply gave it up and let him pass. He 
woke me up at 4 a.m. to say good-bye 
and to give him a cocktail. 



EN REPOS 141 

I ran into Waldo Peirce in the chateau, 
with Foster, who is going to Serbia with 
the Rockefeller " Foundation." Peirce had 
a close call at Nouvelle Fleury. A piece 
of shrapnel got him in the chest, but was 
deflected by his heavy leather pocket-book 
which was filled with papers and money. 
Peirce says he's never going to be without 
money hereafter — he does n't care whose ! 
He's shaved his beard and lost about 
twenty pounds. I hardly recognized him. 

Cartier tells me that when Waldo's wife 
wrote asking him when he was coming 
back, he did n't answer; then she cabled 
requesting a reply; so he wired back — 
"Apres la guerre." 

July 25. Bonne nouvelle! The Section 
has been cited by the Order of the Divi- 
sion for the work before Verdun. They 
will have to solder the Cross on an oil can, 
I suppose, as we carry no pennant. A thing 
that is worthy of record, but which as we 
all know it so thoroughly I had forgotten 
to mention in the part of this diary writ- 
ten at Dugny, is that "Huts"— otherwise 
called "Herbert"— Townsend, of New 



142 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

York, our leader, has all kinds of nerve. 
When I went up to the cabaret the night 
of the final gas attack on Souville, I 
thought, each time, that his calm manner 
and perfectly casual talk only acted on me 
personally. I was scared so that I did n't 
know whether I was coming or going, al- 
though, of course, I did not show it; but 
every man of our Section with whom I 
have since talked said the same thing. Old 
"Huts" steadied us down, whereas if he 
had shown signs of getting rattled, some of 
us might have become nervous. As a mat- 
ter of record we all rolled thirty-two hours 
without a serious hitch of any kind — 

except when C and B suddenly 

declared a personal war of their own. 
"Huts" will wear the Croix, I suppose, 
and he deserves to wear a dozen of them. 
July 26. Off at last in the Hotchkiss. 
I made the trip without a hitch. The boys 
were all glad to see us. We brought much 
mail, and cakes, and so forth. On our way 
we stopped at Montmirail for lunch. There 
we ran into a Mrs. Squiers, of New York, 
who had become a Sister of St. Vincent de 



EN REPOS 143 

Paul and is located at a hospital there. 
She told us that one of her sons was in the 
English Ambulance Service and the other 
in a motor battery. She was glad to talk 
with English-speaking people again, she 
said, after so long; but as she did all the 
talking I could n't see that we did her 
much good. 

Triaucourt, July 27. We were deco- 
rated to-day by the Divisionnaire. He was 
unusually complimentary, — said we were 
cool, brave, drove where we were told and 
showed * ' an elan most commendable," and 
so forth; and finally pinned the Croix on 
Edwards's car, representing the Section. 

Copy of Order No. 78 

< Z m ArmSe, Direction du Service de Sante du Groupement E. 

En execution des prescriptions reglemen- 
taires, le Directeur du Service de Sante du 
6 me Corps d'Armee cite a l'ordre du Service de 
Sante du 6 me Corps d'Armee — 

La Section Sanitaire Automobile 

Americaine N° 1. 

Sous la direction du Lieutenant Robert de 

Kersauson de Pennendreff, et des Officiers 

Americains Herbert Townsend et Victor 



144 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

White, la Section Sanitaire Americaine N° 1, 
composee entierement de volontaires, a assure 
remarquablement le service quotidien des 
evacuations en allant chercher les blesses le 
plus loin possible, malgre un bombardement 
parfois violent. S'est particulierement dis- 
tinguee le 11 Juillet 1916, en traversant a 
plusieurs reprises une nappe de gaz toxiques 
sous un feu intense sans aucun repit pendant 
32 heures pour emmener aux Ambulances 
les intoxiques. 

Le Directeur du Service de SanU, 

J. TOUBERT. 
Quartier GSniral le 26 Juillet 1916. 

Sponagle also got one for repairing a 
car under heavy fire. He is our head me- 
chanician and an awfully good fellow. 
His citation was signed by Joffre himself. 
Brooke also received his Croix and got a 
bully citation from Nivelle. Altogether it 
was a gala occasion. The Section's " Croix " 
will be framed with the "Citation" and 
a copy given to each of us. That also 
comes from Nivelle. 

July 28. For some reason or other the 
boys nicknamed me "The Judge" almost 
from the first moment I joined the squad 



2" Armee 

Jul. 

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Au Q.G.A.le 26 Juillet 

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EN REPOS 145 

on the Somme. Pete Avard was the first to 
pick the name, and I never could find out 
why except that I tried to be even-tem- 
pered and pleasant to all of them — which 
is hard enough at times. Pete used to be 
in the Fourth U.S. Cavalry — "Gallop- 
ing I" troop. — We are still in the Ar- 
gonne. Of the new men Walker and Wal- 
lace are exceptionally good fellows. 

There is going to be a big celebration 
to-night. "Very Good Eddy " and Brooke 
are going to christen their Croix and that 
of the Section. 

July 29. Tardieu has designed an In- 
dian head as the "Convoi's" emblem for 
the squad, taking his lines from the regu- 
lar Indian on the $5 gold-piece. This 
lends a real "ton" to the cars, the head 
being stenciled life-size in red, black, and 
white on the sides, and, as one might say, 
it puts Section "One" on the map. 

The cobbler's daughter in this village 
(Triaucourt) is quite pretty and intelli- 
gent. She showed us the hole in her arm 
where a German high explosive hit her. 
It killed her grandmother beside her, dis- 



146 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

emboweling her. She says that the Ger- 
mans took care of her, however, and acted 
decently enough, except that they set fire 
to a group of stores in the town when they 
left. The woods hereabouts are dotted 
thick with graves, German and French; 
hundreds of them. They are about a year 
old. 

The talk now is that another big offen- 
sive by the Allies is brewing in the Cham- 
pagne. The Russians are nearly all con- 
centrated there. It should break out 
pretty soon, if there is anything in the 
reports we hear. 

I saw a lot of the French troops from 
Indo-China, the Anamites. "Tirailleurs 
Tonquinois " is their official title. They are 
little fellows dressed in pale yellow, but 
wearing the dull blue casque. It was a 
beautiful sight watching the long yellow 
and blue worm, winding for miles along the 
distant road in the hazy sunlight. We have 
now had nearly two weeks of good weather ; 
the longest period of the sort since Meri- 
court. A farmer tells us it came just in the 
nick of time to save the crops, which were 



EN REPOS 147 

beginning to rot. He says the grape and 
wine crops are going to be the best in years, 
especially in Burgundy. He says theCham- 
bertin of this year will be a wonder in time. 

Beside us here is a machine-gun section 
— air-cooled. 

July 30. I had my first introduction to 
soccer football last evening. We played 
the French before an audience of a couple 
of thousand soldiers. They licked us as 
usual, 3-2. 

Cunningham and I had a long walk in 
the woods to-day. He tells me that he is 
"fed up " with war and is going home. He 
has been here almost since the beginning. 
He says one of the most depressing things 
is the way the personnel of the squad 
changes every few months. Just as all get 
to be pretty good pals, a lot have to go 
home and new men fill their places who 
are awkward and strange. We are going 
through that process already and it will be 
accentuated next month. I'm sorry to 
lose old "Gymp," although he's terribly 
pig-headed in his ways, and always sees 
everything in the most dismal light. 



148 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Vic painted a whale of a picture of him: 
the head in a deep shadow with a grouchy 
expression; and a sunny, cheerful back- 
ground behind. He named it "Sunshine 
and Shadow." It is a scream! 

I have been struck forcibly with the 
quiet, restrained, and generally dignified 
behavior of the thousands of French sol- 
diers camped about here. They wander 
through the handsome Poincare chateau 
grounds and never disturb or injure any- 
thing. Bottles of wine left to cool in the 
spring are not touched. 

July 31. The big vaudeville went off 
with great eclat. It could n't have been 
pulled off in a more beautiful or suitable 
spot. A little clearing in the forest with a 
tiny stage flanked with French flags, and 
the general lighting furnished by M. 
Rapp, of S.S.U. No. 1: all the acetylene 
lamps we had. Jimmy Sponagle was the 
only one of us that could produce a stunt, 
and the Frenchmen in the kindness and 
politeness of their hearts put him last. 
Of course, old Sponny did the best he 
could, considering that he followed some 



EN REPOS 149 

of the greatest comedians and singers on 
the professional stage; nevertheless, I 
wished for Woody. He and Sponny could 
have put over something pretty good. 
Then they asked — no, really begged, us 
to sing "Tipperary." Well, we sang it, of 
course. Nobody really knew it and it was 
a frost. The " mise en scene " was wonder- 
ful — all green surroundings. It reminded 
me of Robin Hood stories and the revel- 
ries in Sherwood Forest: by luck, a clear 
night and the stars thickly spangled over 
the opening in the woods. The trees were 
filled with men and whenever one lighted 
a cigarette his face shone through the fo- 
liage like the pumpkin heads at Hallow- 
e'en. It was marvelous. That and Trois 
Fontaines stand out as the two most 
beautiful, peaceful things I have ever 
seen. Of course, nothing compared with 
Verdun at night. That, like the Penseur 
before the Pantheon, is all alone in its 
glory. 

We have a lot of fun evacuating the late 
sleepers. Some of the men lie in bed after 
eight o'clock, and so the fellows sneak 



150 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

up, surround their cars, and quickly grab 
the stretchers, pull them out, and dump 
them on the grass. Some of them get mad, 
and then there is a rough-and-tumble 
fight. One time at Veel they started my 
car and drove me all around the country. 
To-day, we put Francklyn in the middle 
of the main street, and the village girls 
had a great time kidding him. We carried 
him out to the tune of the " Dead March" 
from "Saul!" 

August 1. We have found a swimming- 
pool at last. The discovery was made by 
Baylies in a peculiar way. He was called 
out to get a man who had been drowned. 
We could n't believe it, as the streams all 
around here are so shallow, but he was 
taken to a little dam about ten minutes 
from here that we had entirely missed. So 
henceforth we are all right. 

August 2. I got a shock this morning. 
I awoke to find my face had turned quite 
green. I thought for a minute gangrene 
or something had set in. The explanation 
came quickly. It had rained a little in the 
night and Mrs. Charles M. Lea's beau- 



EN REPOS 151 

tiful green silk pneumatic pillow had got 
a trifle damp — that pillow, hitherto, has 
been a joy! 

I had to laugh at Imbrie. Like Gunning- 
ham he 's always growling and kicking and 
calling this a h — 1 of a life. Just before I 
went to Paris he said his time would be 
up the 1st of August and he was "fed up" 
and going to quit and go back — and all 
that. Well, I asked him to-day what boat 
he was sailing on, and he grinned sheep- 
ishly and said that he'd just signed up for 
another three months ! As a matter of fact 
he loves it. All his life has been spent 
traveling around the globe, including a 
long stay hunting in Africa, and he could 
no more leave this than fly. 

We had a scream of a cross-country 
hare-and-hounds run this evening. " Huts " 
Townsend, as Section Chief, opened cham- 
pagne at dinner in honor of the "Cita- 
tion." There was one bottle extra and 
much argument arose between the two 
tables as to which should have it. Culbert- 
son went over and grabbed it and they all 
fell upon him. Finally Roche got away 



152 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

with it and supported by a couple of others 
ran off. After a little interval we all de- 
cided to hunt for them and there ensued 
a regular chase across country. We must 
have covered several miles. But they were 
foxy. They hid the bottle and then led us 
a long run. Then they sneaked back and 
drank it up, while we were still hunting in 
the woods. The Frenchmen thought we 
were all "nutty," but we explained it was 
a regular American game! 

"Huts" heard from our old Division, 
the Third Colonials. It appears General 
Gaddel lost his hand in the attack on the 
Somme: and poor little Abbe Souri, the 
chaplain, is not expected to live. 

August 5. I hear that W. M. Barber, of 
Toledo, Ohio, the Section 3 man who was 
shot in the stomach, is out and around 
again : quite a resurrection. He completely 
fooled the French authorities who gave 
him the Medaille Militaire, in addition to 
the Croix de Guerre, which is generally 
considered as about guaranteeing the 
"Croix de bois." Now he's going back to 
the Front again. 



EN REPOS 153 

I had a nasty nightmare last night. I 
dreamed I was dressing to go to a formal 
dinner-party at home. It certainly was a 
relief to wake up here. 

They put a large yellow flea-bitten mon- 
grel dog and a live chicken in Bowman's 
"bus" where he was sleeping last night. 
There was a jolly riot, as may be imag- 
ined. 

August 7. I broke a ligament in my 
leg playing ball. Rough luck! Will be out 
of business for about a week, I suppose, if 
it's anything like as bad as the last time. 
I can't walk at present. Lucky we are 
still "en repos," so somebody can take 
my runs for me temporarily. 

Mrs. W. K Vanderbilt came up to see 
us last night with the Due de Clermont- 
Tonnerre and Andrew. She gave us all 
cigarettes. Their car had a close call near 
Pont-a-Mousson when a shell exploded 
close to them. 

We moved this afternoon to a new camp: 
only about ten kilometers. Vaulecourt is 
the town nearest us. The place is par- 
tially wrecked; the church destroyed. 



154 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

The bells, by the way, were presented by 
an ancestor of Clermont-Tonnerre. It is 
a pretty spot in the woods. There is a little 
thatched hut where a peasant and his 
daughters live. They have a pet pig, and 
the oldest daughter is a most self-pos- 
sessed young woman, considering her age, 
about fifteen. She is n't a bit rattled at the 
jollying we give her. 

Andrew told us that the Field Depart- 
ment of the American Ambulance was 
now officially separated from the Paris 
Hospital and had secured new quarters 
near the Trocadero — 21 Rue Raynouard. 

August 8. We went wild-boar hunting 
last night. Nothing doing. They say they 
are quite thick around here; also deer, but 
they are protected. I saw two young boars 
a farmer caught, — pretty little animals, 
very fast on their feet. A fine stream to 
wash clothes in is the Aisne, but hardly 
deep enough for swimming around here. 
However, we wade out and duck under. 
I took a "malade" over to Revigny and 
a couple of big boars came between the 
road and the railway as we got there. 



EN REPOS 155 

I stopped in the main cafe and found 
"Winny" O'Connor and "Doc" Ryan's 
names carved on one of the tables, dated 
1915. Section 4 used to be up there. The 
town is badly shot up ; in fact all the towns 
hereabout are half -ruins. The little peas- 
ant girl says her father used to own a farm 
here, but it was burned down. The French 
had to bombard the place, as the Germans 
were in these woods. In fact one of their 
old trenches runs right beside our canton- 
ment. 

The little peasant girls are remarkably 
strong for their age; they can lift big logs, 
hoe the fields, and do men's work; but are 
terribly dirty. It is rather pathetic. When 
we started to jolly the older one, she 
went into the hut and in a few minutes 
came out in a different calico smock: her 
best, I suppose, and she had done up her 
hair; but her hands and face were as dirty 
as ever. She has a sense of humor, though. 
She came out this morning with two po- 
tato hoes and a basket. Edwards promptly 
rushed forward and asked if he might go 
over and dig the potatoes. So she gravely 



156 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

thanked him, handed him the basket, and 
the hoes, and said, "Go ahead; I will sit 
here and talk to these gentlemen." Of 
course, we all cheered and Edwards was 
much crestfallen. Then Culbertson, who 
stands six feet, offered to carry a basket of 
beans for her, and she looked at him a mo- 
ment, then shook her head; "Non, non, 
pauvre petit Americain, j'ai peur que ga 
ne te fasse du mal." And all this from an 
imp of fifteen, brought up in a hovel in 
the back woods! "Vic," the club dog, is 
utterly nonplussed at the tame pig, which 
is just about his size. It is a scream to see 
them together. They call the pig "Guil- 
laume II." 

August 10. "Duffy," Phil and Lew left 
for home and fair Harvard to-day. We 
went through the customary burying pro- 
cession to the tune of the " Dead March " 
from " Saul." Every one was really sorry. 

Wild-boar hunting still goes on these 
moonlight nights, but Lathrop is the only 
one who has had a shot, and as he only 
had a revolver, he missed. There are 
plenty around. The place is full of tracks 



EN REPOS 157 

and several have caught glimpses of them in 
the distance. Lathrop's method is rather 
unique. He fills his pockets with rocks, 
and when he hears the boars in the long 
grass, stirs them up by chucking stones at 
them, and then, when they break cover, he 
lets go at them with the old revolver. 

August 12. Still loafing. All there is 
to do is read, eat, sleep, and swim and 
watch the French troops drilling. I saw 
an interesting lesson in trench "cleaning " 
yesterday. All the troops are now being 
taught the gentle art of bomb and hand- 
grenade throwing. The method of advance 
up an enemy trench was most interesting. 
First two men armed with rifles and bayo- 
nets, each keeping one length of trench 
apart, move forward, so that both won't 
be killed by the same shot. They are the 
scouts. They signal the first bomb-thrower, 
two sections back, by means of pebbles, as 
of course, in battle, no voice or whistles can 
be heard. The first bomb-thrower and his 
orderly, who carries the basket, are con- 
nected with the second bomb-thrower and 
his assistant by a messenger. The second 



158 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

bomb-thrower, however, is two trench 
sections back, and is picked for a long-dis- 
tance thrower. He throws over the heads 
of the others. After it is seen that three or 
four grenades have landed in the trench, 
the scouts advance again and signal back 
as before, and everybody moves up, includ- 
ing the reserves, who lie back two or three 
sections and also are connected by a mes- 
senger. It takes quite a while to clean up 
even a half-mile of trench — some two or 
three hours. They throw with a curious, 
overhand, tossing motion almost like bowl- 
ing a cricket ball. The ordinary baseball 
throw is impracticable, as the arm and 
shoulder would have to come above the 
trench. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 

Allons, enfants de nos allies, 
Les jours de gloire sont arrives. 

Man that makes new chaos out of fire and rending steel and 

masters and emerges from it, . . . 
Finds new forms of life that live and freely move across this 

powder pitted wilderness of torment. 

John Curtis Underwood 

August 15. At last! We move to-day: 
just about time. We go to Landrecourt 
near Verdun; a little to the west of Dugny, 
where we were stationed before. We either 
do the Mort Homme or Bras-Souville 
work, they say, but we won't know for 
certain till we get there. Little Helene of- 
fered to do my laundry yesterday. I was 
quite surprised as she is n't much that sort. 
She did it very well, too. She had no soap, 
so I gave her a piece and she would n't 
accept any pay; said she'd keep the soap. 
I told her not to use it as a souvenir, but 
for what it was made for, at which she got 
sore. Considering that her father beats 



160 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

her if she talks to us, she ran a big chance 
doing my clothes, and it was certainly 
sporting of her. Her old man knows he 
can't lick us, so he beats her instead, and it 
naturally keeps us from chatting with her 
except when he is away. As a matter of 
fact, not a man in the squad would even 
think of doing her any harm. 

August 16. I could find no good place to 
camp at Landrecourt, so came on past to 
a beautiful old farm-chateau called Bille- 
mont right outside Verdun. Great, big, 
beautiful place with fountains, splendid 
gardens, and park. The only reason it 
was empty was that the officers of the 
"Genie," who occupied it until a week 
ago, got shelled out. The place itself 
was hit only three or four times, but a 
good many shells landed all around the 
house, showing the Boches had the range. 
When the "Genie" moved out, the shell- 
ing ceased. Now we can test the oft- 
mooted question whether the Germans 
shell ambulances on purpose. Personally, 
I have always held that they do not; but 
that, if an ambulance happens to be in 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 161 

the way or in line with something they 
are after, they don't pay any attention 
to it one way or the other, — hence the 
many stories from rattled drivers that 
they personally were being shot at. The 
price of shells is too high. 

Of course we only enter or leave the 
place at two-minute intervals and are 
careful not to stand in groups. Also we do 
not open the shutters, and we screen the 
windows with blankets at night. We are 
not only in plain sight of the Boche "sau- 
cisses," but also from Fort Douaumont 
which they hold. The cars are scattered 
all over, — under bushes so that not only 
they won't attract attention, but also, if 
a shell does come in, only one or two will 
be smashed at a time. 

Paul Kurtz, of Philadelphia, joined the 
Section to-day. He used to be with it up 
at Dunkerque, but went back to America 
last winter and has only just returned. 

The last people here certainly fled in a 
hurry. Contents of closets and drawers 
are scattered all over the place; every- 
thing is topsy-turvy. Some of the closets 



162 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

have been nailed up. Probably books and 
other articles of value are in them. The 
owner, whoever he was, must have been 
quite a faddist besides being an up-to-date 
farmer. He has all the latest implements 
and quite a chemical laboratory. He was 
also apparently interested in electricity 
and hypnotism, judging from his pam- 
phlets and books. The caretaker says he 
was arrested as a German spy. It appears 
that a German company owns the land 
and quarry across the road. To allay sus- 
picion they placed a number of French- 
men on the directorate, and also had a 
French overseer who lived in this chateau. 
The company went into receivership at 
the beginning of the war, but suspicion did 
not attach to it until the receivers began 
to investigate. Oddly enough, the place 
was n't shelled until the overseer, who still 
lived in the chateau, was removed a few 
months ago. Then, when the "Genie" 
Staff moved in, the shelling soon followed. 
For some time since the place has been 
vacant and, as we eased in very carefully, 
we hope to get away with it. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 163 

August 18. Off on twenty-four-hour 
"poste" duty with Lathrop, at a sad 
dump near Souilly, named Hopital Fon- 
taine de Bouton. We stay here and have a 
run of less than a half-mile taking treated 
"blesses" to the train. The worst of it is 
that they keep us going at short intervals 
all night. 

August 19. Heavy shelling and some 
sort of an attack last night on Thiaumont, 
so we were kept busy. Many Boche pris- 
oners are here working on the hospital 
grounds. They are a healthy-looking lot. 
Their own officers are allowed to command 
them and they are very well treated. One 
of them with spectacles, who is an electri- 
cian by trade, told me that on the whole 
he would rather be on this side of the line 
than the other, but when I asked him for 
details, he shut up. I told a German 
"blesse" whom I carried what his com- 
patriot said, and he nodded his head, agree- 
ing; but he asserted that they would take 
Verdun if they never did another thing. It 
looks just now as if they were going to do 
it. Another violent attack (counter) is on. 



164 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

The French got one half of Fleury, up to 
the church, last night. The Germans are 
counter-attacking now. The fighting is go- 
ing on in cellars and what's left of houses: 
the rottenest kind of work. One some- 
times does n't know for a day or two 
whether the town is captured or not. Some 
of the Boche "blesses," who have been 
coming in during the last few hours, can't 
be more than sixteen or seventeen. We 
worked hard all night. The hospitals all 
around are jammed and men are lying 
even outdoors. 

I had a curious experience. A Harjes 
car came up, and in the dim light of a 
smoky lantern a familiar face appeared. 
I stared at it for a moment and then a 
muffled figure remarked, "Is n't your 
name Stevenson?" It was Charley Clark, 
of Philadelphia! 1 I had n't seen him for 
ten years. It appears he lived in Chicago 
for a while and then moved to Boston. 
He came over to France in May and 

1 Charles Motley Clark, of Philadelphia, son of the 
late Clarence H. Clark. His mother was Miss Motley, of 
Boston, niece of the historian. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 165 

joined Harjes. We chatted for quite a 
while. He is at Dugny doing evacuating 
work. 

It is almost impossible to get any real 
account of how the fights go from the 
"blesses"; each has his own particular 
little local in mind, and also much de- 
pends upon the time when the individual 
was wounded. One Senegalese, for in- 
stance, claimed all the officers had run 
away when the word came to charge. 
Another man later told me they were all 
killed. Some say they advanced a consid- 
erable distance; but most of the wounded 
are pessimistic. The fact is, however, that 
many German prisoners, both wounded 
and unwounded, were taken, and that usu- 
ally indicates a victory. 

August 20. We started in the new Sou- 
ville "poste" service, called Caserne Mar- 
ceau. We handled the men fighting for 
Fleury. The village has changed hands 
almost daily during the past week. Three 
cars were on duty twenty-four hours. 
Some fight! When I got up there, the first 
thing I saw was a wrecked car and four 



166 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

bodies lined up beside it, — three of them 
Lieutenants. The Caserne Marceau is 
absolutely shot to pieces. The doctors live 
in deep dug-outs. The road is simply 
pockmarked with shell holes. I picked up 
a dozen fusees just walking about near by. 

The English Section we are relieving 
has had three cars wrecked and several 
men wounded. Thank Heaven, we have 
"shed" at last the other little dinky ser- 
vice of the past three or four days. We 
drive from Chateau Billemont, through 
Verdun, and then up toward Souville, much 
closer to the lines even than at Tavannes. 
Squad A (Nos. 1 to 10) started in at noon 
and worked till 8 p.m. 

A counter-attack (German) on Fleury 
started around 5 p.m. We had hardly 
got to bed after dinner when we were 
all called out again. Squad B had been 
hoodooed from the start and we had to 
help out. Roche, White, Lathrop, and I 
had not had any sleep for two nights. 
Wilson we found, down with a broken 
axle in a big "380" marmite hole right in 
the road, new since he had gone up to the 



THE BATTLE FOR FLE¥RY 167 

"poste." Baylies was broken down in 
Verdun town with tire trouble. Jones got 
lost and landed in a muddy ravine which 
enjoys the cheerful title of "Le Ravin de 
la Mort" (it was pouring rain), and he 
could n't get out. Some of the others also 
got temporarily lost or had tire trouble. 
No wonder Squad A had to go in. We got 
through about 4 a.m. The Landrecourt 
Hospital was filled up quickly, and we had 
to take our last few loads away back to the 
Fontaine-Bouton Hospital. The machine- 
gun division of the 143d was practically 
wiped out. We carried several of the men 
with whom we played football at Triau- 
court, poor fellows ! One man said all the 
officers had been killed, and that just ordi- 
nary soldiers took command. As I said 
above, we saw three of the dead Lieuten- 
ants at our "poste." 

The ground over which the men fight 
is simply indescribable, — nothing but 
twisted and splintered stumps of trees (the 
place around here was formerly a wood). 
The ground looks as though a huge 
plough had furrowed and turned it over. 



168 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Empty shells everywhere, arms and accou- 
terments of all sorts strewing the land, un- 
exploded grenades, and fusees that threat- 
en one every step. Bastions of bags and 
bits of trenches, hastily made, connect up a 
few of the larger and most useful shell holes 
— dismounted "75's," bloody rags and 
clothes, mouldy food and half -empty tins. 
And the most pathetic of all, numberless 
graves simply made by covering up a body 
in a shell hole, with a bit of wood stuck in 
it, or a bottle with the man's number on 
it. These, in turn, have been blown up 
again and again. Over all prevailed a smell 
of rotting flesh and the acrid, damp odor 
of burned clothes and wood, such as one 
gets after a city fire when the ruins have 
been soaked in water. Not a sign of life 
except the myriads of gnats and flies which 
darken the air when disturbed, and the 
rats that scurry from under one's feet. 

One of the "Genie" told us that the job 
of trench-digging through this land fought 
over for two years is about the most hor- 
rible imaginable, as they constantly have to 
dig through rotting bodies which render the 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 169 

trench, once dug, almost uninhabitable. 
And steadily, at almost regular intervals, 
the shells come whistling in, bursting with 
a frightful crash, only once more to hurl 
skyward the whole dreadful rotting mass 
of filth that was once the Bois Chapitre 
and the Froide-Terre. 

August 21. We have worked three 
days and nights without any sleep except 
naps snatched in the cars or "postes." 
Several of the fellows have had pretty close 
calls. Rice got his initiation with a venge- 
ance on his first time out, when a "150" 
dropped in the road within a few feet of 
him while he was loading "blesses." 
Walker got spattered with mud by an- 
other which fell beside the road. 

There was the usual comic scene with 
Baylies. Bowman was coming down the 
road when he found it blocked by a mass 
of dead and wounded horses and men all 
tangled up with harness and wagons, and 
beside them one of our cars. It turned out 
to be Baylies, who came running up to 
Bowman, exclaiming, "There's been an 
awful mess, Bob!" and Bowman perfectly 



170 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

unthinkingly ejaculated, "Good Lord, 
what have you done now, Baylies?" 
Baylies was as sore as two sticks and 
growled, "Ah, where 'd you get that stuff? " 
His conventional answer to all gibes. The 
word "to Baylies" (French "Bayliser") 
has been standardized in Section 1 and is 
even spreading to the other Sections. 

The thing that gets on one's nerves in 
this service is watching the shells burst 
along the road ahead, while one is loading, 
and knowing that one will have to pass 
right there in a minute or two. Once on 
the way, the road is so steep and bad 
that it requires all one's attention, and 
the bursting marmites don't loom so large. 
Souville is certainly the home of the sou- 
venir hunter. If we could ever carry away 
all that we collect, the steamer would be 
laden down to the gunwales. Ned Town- 
send evidently thinks he can move half the 
remains of the battle with him, — at least 
he goes about collecting as if he expected 
to have a "camion" of the largest size 
to cart his things down to Paris for him. 

August %%. Our greatest difficulty is to 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 171 

snatch a chance to sleep. I have run every 
night since we've been here so far, and I 
snatch naps at the "poste" or in Verdun 
where we have established a secondary- 
headquarters in the big military clubhouse, 
now deserted and partially wrecked. Five 
cars got to the caserne, ten are lined up by 
the river in the town of Verdun, and five 
remain "en repos." So five men get one 
night's sleep in three. I take my hat off 
to Roche. He can curl up anywhere and 
sleep peacefully. Last night he got a very 
bloody "brancard," laid it under the bench 
where the " blesses " sit awaiting their turn 
to be patched up, and was sound asleep 
for four hours, while the Boches dropped 
"220" marmites around the "poste," and 
the groans of the wounded and chatter of 
the doctors and " brancardiers " kept up 
a continual disturbance. I've given up 
trying to sleep in the "abris" and take a 
chance in the car outside. At least it is 
cool, and the air is foul only with the odor 
of burned wood and rotting flesh. In the 
daytime we have less to do and only oper- 
ate five cars except in cases of emergency. 



172 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

To date we still hold Fleury despite re- 
peated German counter-attacks — eight 
took place on the night before last, and 
three last night. 

There are some curious sights in Ver- 
dun. The gendarmes are everywhere and 
have prevented all looting, so one peers 
through shell holes into placid-looking in- 
teriors — some with the table set for din- 
ner; others, sitting-rooms with all the fur- 
niture left, just as when the owners fled 
from the town. In one, you see that the 
shell burst right on a rosewood piano and 
the rest of the room is not much disturbed. 
In another, there is a bully library, the 
side of which is torn out, but rows on rows 
of handsomely bound books are left un- 
touched, neatly arranged on their shelves, 
and a table on which are writing materials, 
papers, and the rest. 

August 23. Some of the men we carry 
certainly have had weird experiences. Cul- 
bertson had "blesses" who told him that, 
at one time during the fight around Fleury, 
the French batteries were firing a trifle 
short and were landing on their own men. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 173 

A big "155" hit just back of this fellow, 
went deep in the mud, and then exploded. 
It blew him ten feet in the air; and, while 
he was up, a Boche mitrailleuse got him 
"on the wing," so to speak. He was as 
sore as a crab, as he figured he would n't 
have been touched if it had not been for 
his own guns blowing him out into the open 
like the ball in the fountain at a shoot- 
ing gallery! Two men were killed at our 
"poste" to-day and one wounded. 

To-night, as we sit here waiting our turns 
to roll, the "big marmites" are dropping 
all around us and the "poste" is rocked by 
the explosions. It is not as good as the one 
at Cappy, being above ground. It is made 
of big arched metal sections set in the side 
of the hill, and sandbags and logs piled 
above it. The theory of the logs is to cause 
the shell to explode before it penetrates. 
The ends are also protected by sandbags. 
The Staff "abri" is thirty feet under 
ground and practically safe except from 
being completely blocked — which occurs 
occasionally. The latest figures regarding 
the 143d show only 247 men left unin- 



174 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

jured out of 2000 ! — and they were in the 
front line just three days. 

A little added touch to the general diffi- 
culties was a nice, heavy fog that we had 
last night. One could n't see more than 
ten or fifteen yards ahead, but luckily 
there was n't any great rush of work, so 
each of us made only two or three runs. 
I carried a "poilu" who had been in the 
Fleury bickering, and who complained 
that the shell holes and attempts at 
trenches were continually being filled up 
by the dirt tumbling in as the ground 
got shaken by new explosions, so that 
when one thought one had a three- or 
four-foot hole to hide in, it gradually 
would work up shallower and shallower 
until one had to beat it to a fresh hole. 

Our club at Verdun is certainly a snappy 
place : a big four-story building filled with 
banquet-halls, card-rooms, a billiard-room, 
and a fencing-hall; fully as large as the 
Racquet Club at home. The only trouble 
with it is that the roof has been blown off, 
and many of the rooms have been wrecked 
by high explosives which came in from two 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 175 

sides — over the Meuse from the direction 
of the Mort Homme and directly back 
from Douaumont and Vaux. However, 
the lower floor is in pretty good condi- 
tion, and we use the fencing-hall. Spo- 
nagle went to Bar-le-Duc to-day with 
"Huts" to see the aviators of the Ameri- 
can Squad drill, and came back by aero- 
plane. Norman Prince just dropped in 
with him, as it were! 

August 24. Last night, Squad A wasto 
get its first full night's sleep in five days, 
but we got fooled. The French attacked 
at 5 p.m. and the entire Section was called 
out. Sponagle had to take the place of one 
of the new men. The latter had gone to 
pieces under the strain, and was given 
veronal and ordered by "Huts" to rest. 
Being a new man he could hardly be 
blamed, so nobody thinks any the worse 
of him. He should be all right again 
after twenty-four hours' rest. 

The Germans began throwing real 
"380's" into Belleray in the afternoon — 
nothing unreal about those! They were 
trying for the canal. Some of us walked 



176 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

over and took some pictures. The reserve 
cars went out at dusk and we headed down 
to our club. The Boches were trying for 
a "270" battery concealed near the river 
just at the edge of the town, and the shells 
came whistling over us, landing in and 
along the river. The reverberations and 
echoes caused by the houses on either side 
amplified the explosions until the whole 
valley seemed to be in one continuous 
roar. Some day a musician will set those 
rising and falling, ever-changing cadenzas 
to a great song, the "Song of the Guns." 
They ring in rhythm like chimes, louder 
and fainter, as the ebb and flow of sound 
goes up and down the river. 

Around midnight, word came that the 
attack had been successful and eight hun- 
dred yards gained to the west of Fleury in 
the Froide-Terre; also that three counter- 
attacks had been repulsed. The reserve 
cars had to make only one trip each, as the 
casualties were remarkably light, consider- 
ing. The 342d and the 17th did the trick, 
taking a couple of hundred prisoners. They 
had previously relieved a regiment that 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 177 

got all cut up because the men failed to 
carry their charge home. They hesitated 
right in the open and were practically anni- 
hilated, of course. 

Francklyn and Walker had a close call: 
they were sitting in front of the dug-out 
reading a paper, when a "105" high ex- 
plosive hit a tree not five yards from 
them. Pieces of the shell smashed into 
Francklyn's car and a shower of stones 
knocked the paper out of Walker's hand 
and both men were thrown to the ground. 
Walker says all he remembers was that 
some one seemed to snatch his paper away 
and knock him down at the same time, 
and he found himself crawling under his 
car, while Gyles made one long slide for 
the dug-out entrance. 

August 25. They threw the hook into 
our batteries all day yesterday, and sev- 
eral of the "brethren" nearly got done 
for. "Huts" and I were standing out- 
side the"poste," when a "130" Austrian 
dropped right back of it and blew earth 
and "eclats" all around. Also, several 
have fallen on the road, which is very an- 



178 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

noying when driving at night, thinking 
one knows all its various convolutions and 
corrugations, and finding they have been 
quite altered since the last time one ran 
over it. We stopped and filled up a couple 
of fresh ones that were really too deep to 
leave. From all the shelling we supposed 
there would be an attack; but nothing hap- 
pened, and our squad, which was "first 
reserve," slept in the club at Verdun peace- 
fully, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic boom 
of the guns. Squad A2 still has to get its 
first night's sleep in our own chateau, how- 
ever. To-night we are on duty at the 
"poste" again. A French aeroplane was 
brought down by three Boches to-day. 
It fell in a field near our "poste." The 
German machines swooped down from 
behind and fairly riddled the Frenchman, 
who managed none the less to navigate 
his plane to the ground, though badly 
wounded. 

I carried a crazy man this morning. I 
found him wandering aimlessly around 
Verdun with a nasty hole in his head, and 
tried to get him into the car, but he kept 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 179 

insisting he was too heavy. Finally, with 
the aid of a couple of soldiers we made him 
get aboard. He murmured all the time, 
"Je suis trop lourd. Je suis trop lourd." 
I held him with one hand while I steered 
him to the hospital in the town. The poor 
devil was so weak from the loss of blood 
and from the bang on his head that it 
was n't difficult. Then, when he got to the 
hospital he refused to leave the car. He 
seemed to have become attached to it, so 
we had to drag him out. 

August 26. They brought a real, raving 
maniac into the "poste" to-day. He was 
the only one left of a squad of eight — all 
killed in a shell hole by one marmite. He 
lived with the dead bodies for three days ! 
When they dragged him into the tunnel 
he shouted, "You're going to kill me! 
You're going to kill me!" The place is 
rather gruesome, being dark except for 
the acetylene lamp over the operating- 
table. They sent him down with two 
" brancardiers " sitting on him. At Lan- 
drecourt he attacked the Medecin Chef, 
so they put him in a straight-jacket. 



180 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

He thought every one wished to kill him. 
He was absolutely unscratched. 

Vic White and Kurtz cleaned out the 
fountain to-day, and we will now have 
a fine bathing-pool. Crane, of Section E, 
dropped in to see Roche and me; first time 
we've run across him since the "Rocham- 
beau" and the days of waiting in Paris. 
He says they have had considerable work 
around Toul and that he has become quite 
expert at ducking shells and sliding for 
dug-outs, like an enthusiastic base-runner 
trying to stretch a three-bagger. They are 
now stationed at Ipecourt and have a long 
run to Fort Glorieux, their "poste." 

August 27. I shan't forget last evening 
in a hurry. To begin with, as the his- 
toric tale commences, "It was a dark and 
stormy night and the rain was pouring in 
torrents." Well, we could n't see the road 
a yard ahead of us, and, of course, the 
Boches took it into their heads to attack. 
The men we carried later said they had 
never seen the Germans come on with 
greater fury; but finally they were beaten 
back. The French "tir de barrage" was 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 181 

fearful; just like the night of the big at- 
tack on Souville; and the Boches kept 
shelling the road all night. In addition to 
the shells, the danger of being run into by- 
some one of our amateur speed kings was 
very great, as the road is merely a nar- 
row, muddy lane winding up the side of 
the steep slope to Fort St. Michel and 
Souville. The batteries around Fort St. 
Michel were getting hot on our left also. 
Well, first, I nearly collided with one of 
the "brethren" as he came tearing up the 
hill while I was coming down slowly with 
a load of "couches." He drove me clean 
off the road, but luckily I was on the in- 
side against the hill, and not going the 
other way, or I'd have been in the ravine 
a couple of hundred feet below. On my 
next trip up I found that Townsend had 
collided with Walker and both machines 
were "Bayliesed" beyond immediate re- 
demption. The fronts of both looked like 
concertinas. I asked Walker privately 
how it happened, and he said, "I was 
coming along slowly and tooting my whis- 
tle when Ned came tearing down, hell- 



182 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

bent, on the wrong side of the road." I 
then took Ned aside and asked for his 
version, and he said, "I was coming along 
slowly, and tooting my whistle, when Sam 
came tearing down, hell-bent, on the 
wrong side of the road ! " So there you are. 
As a matter of fact, they merely proved 
beyond doubt that two " Flivvers' ' cannot 
occupy the same place at the same time, 
wonderful as they are ! White took Town- 
send's "blesses," who were luckily unin- 
jured by the accident. He had n't gone a 
half-mile when he blew out a tire; so the 
unfortunate passengers were again trans- 
ferred, this time to Roche. They must 
have had a very unneutral opinion of the 
American Ambulance. Meantime I went 
on my way up to the "poste." As I got 
within about a quarter of a mile of it, I 
heard the whine of a big shell, and a mo- 
ment later saw it burst about a hundred 
yards ahead of me right beside the road. 
Visions of "Please omit flowers" came to 
Willie all right, so I opened her up as 
much as I dared in the dark, in the hope 
that I 'd get by the bad corner before the 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 183 

next one came along. I just did it by a 
half. The second shell was almost right 
beside the road again and, believe me, 
the flying pieces seemed to whistle all 
around the car. It was the closest call yet 
— or at least so it seemed with the vari- 
ous accompaniments of rough weather, 
pitch darkness, awful roads, and speed- 
mad "brethren." Dawn was certainly 
welcome when it finally came as I fin- 
ished my third trip. 

On the last round I carried a well-edu- 
cated "poilu" of about forty years of age, 
who paid the American Ambulance many 
compliments; he said that no matter how 
our Government had acted the soldiers of 
France who had had the privilege of seeing 
our work would never forget the debt they 
owed us, and more to the same effect. This 
man had rifle bullets through both hands. 
He said he and another soldier got the 
drop on four Bodies, who put up their 
rifles and yelled "Kamerad" in token of 
surrender. Then, when the Frenchmen 
beckoned them to come in, and let down 
their sighted guns, the Boches suddenly 



184 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

opened fire, wounding my man; but his 
partner and a machine-gun squad wiped 
out the four dirty curs before they could 
play any more of their foul tricks. 

"Huts" came back this evening and an- 
nounced that there were some new and 
deep shell holes in the road, and to look 
out for them. So I suggested that some 
of us go ahead of time and fill them up. 
Baylies volunteered to go with me, and we 
worked till the light gave out; we did 
about six or eight. It helped the road a 
lot. We expect a big bunch of "blesses" 
to-night, as a more or less general attack 
was made by various regiments, including 
the Senegalese. Vic White went up with 
the ' * Loot' ' to the artillery observation post 
and said it was an awful sight : bodies blown 
high in the air and falling down in little 
pieces. He said the attack was scheduled 
for five o'clock, and the minutes of sus- 
pense just before it occurred were frightful. 
At the stroke of five, little blue manikins 
appeared out of the earth and began to 
move forward all along the line. The 
whole field was dotted with explosions and 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 185 

clouds of smoke, and now and then a mani- 
kin would suddenly drop or jump up in 
the air. The Boches were hardly discern- 
ible in the distance, except when they were 
blown bodily out of their shell holes. 
There were no trenches to speak of, natu- 
rally. The attack was only partially suc- 
cessful. As far as we know, to date, some 
of the regiments were checked by hand- 
grenades; others advanced a hundred 
yards or so; but they got quite a bunch 
of prisoners. Vic says there's nothing to 
be seen of Fleury but a white and red 
smear on the brown earth — the bricks 
and mortar; not a house, not a wall stand- 
ing. He described how one Boche was 
blown in three pieces high up above the 
treetops and two of the pieces fell rapidly, 
but the third came drifting down slowly: 
it was his overcoat which had been ripped 
right off him by the explosion. 

August 28. Last night was a repetition 
of the previous one. The whole squad was 
out all night, including even the " camion " 
which was used to carry "assis." Nobody 
was smashed, however. The returning cars 



186 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

were ordered to make a part of the run by 
the road through Belleray, which elimi- 
nated at least a modicum of the chances 
of accidents between our zealous "breth- 
ren." It was pitch black, and rained in- 
termittently, and the roads were fright- 
fully slippery. In addition, new shell holes 
appeared in the road to make up for the 
ones we had filled in. I got a blow-out, 
and so did Vic White. Yesterday's at- 
tack was, as I feared, a failure and a 
costly one. One can tell, by the general 
attitude of the men we carry, how things 
have gone. They, of course, only know of 
their own immediate surroundings ; but the 
feeling of victory or defeat quickly spreads, 
even though no definite information is 
forthcoming for days afterwards. 

August 29. It poured last night, but our 
squad was "en repos," and for the first 
time since I've been here, I slept in my 
own blankets and "brancard" in the 
chateau. Bowman had a narrow escape 
from a shell which burst right beside him 
and wounded one of his " blesses " in the leg. 
He'll probably be cited. Wilson fell into 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 187 

a ditch, the road being entirely covered 
with water, and he had to stay there till 
daylight, when he got out. Culbertson and 
Bowman collided near the Verdun Gate, 
but no damage was done. Little had tire 
trouble, and had to transfer his "blesses" 
twice. 

Lathrop and Paul left to-day. Every 
one was awfully sorry. They are hard 
workers, good drivers, and Paul an expert 
mechanic besides. The Groupement E 
Chef has been so pleased with our work 
that we have been permitted to shed 
the Thirty-second Division which went 
out to-day for "repos." We are dreadfully 
sorry to lose the old Catholic priest, Abbe 
Lauras, who was with the Thirty-second: 
a fine man, always on the job night and 
day. He knows just about as much of the 
handling of troops as do the officers; and 
many of them consulted him as to the dis- 
position of their men in the "abris." He 
certainly was worked to death during the 
two weeks he was here, and looked very 
haggard and about "all in" when he was 
replaced. The new priest seems to be a 



188 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

good sort too — in fact, all the priests at 
the Front are an exceptional class of men 
and many carry the Croix de Guerre. 

We 're to remain another fortnight with 
the Sixty-eighth Division. The other Sec- 
tions will be as sore as crabs when they 
hear we are to stay. Section 2 has been 
pulling all the wires it can to get our job; 
and so have the Harjes and the English 
Section 1, which we displaced. We are to 
do the same work, and a French Section of 
Pugeots will take the evacuating from 
Landrecourt. It took some jollying on the 
part of our "Loot " to let us supersede 
them, as they were the normal ones to 
take the Souville job, being the regular 
Section with the Sixty-eighth Division. 
With Paul and Lathrop gone, and Imbrie 
still absent in Paris owing to family and 
business affairs, we are short two men, but 
Wallace and Ned Townsend's cars are 
smashed, and they are taking the released 
cars; hence all that can roll are doing so. 
"Huts" has telegraphed and written to 
Paris again for more cars, but so far has 
received no satisfaction. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 189 

August 30. It is astonishing how news 
carries in the trenches. On the night of the 
28th, I carried "poilus" who told me that 
Roumania had gone in with the Allies. 
There was not a word about it in the papers 
of the 29th and I thought it was idle gos- 
sip. Yet this morning it proves to be true! 
I had fun with the Protestant " Aumonier " 
of the new Division, who had never been 
under fire before. I carried him from the 
hospital at Landrecourt to this new ' ' poste " 
at the Caserne Marceau, below Souville. 
As we neared Verdun he was much inter- 
ested in the view, the Mort Homme, Hill 
304, Tavannes, Souville, St. Michel, and 
so on; but as we passed through the ruined 
city and began to get close to the guns, he 
got more and more nervous, especially as 
he could n't differentiate between the out- 
going and incoming shells. Finally he 
asked where the "poste" was and, as luck 
would have it, a big shell burst right over 
it, up the hill, and I pointed it out to him. 
The new "100" marine guns were bark- 
ing like mad, nearly jumping him out of 
his seat; and the finishing touch occurred 



190 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

just as we arrived at the "poste," when a 
"105" shrapnel burst above us. He was 
almost incoherent. But when he saw some 
of the old Division still there, for a mo- 
ment he had a ray of hope that he had got 
to the wrong place. This was quickly dis- 
pelled, however, and when I left to go 
down again, the old Catholic priest was 
kindly explaining to him that he would 
take him to his dug-out a hundred yards 
up the road, just as soon as the Boches 
stopped shelling it for a moment. Poor 
fellow, I felt sorry for him. I doubt if he 
will be of much spiritual benefit to his 
flock for a while, at least. 

Potter and Francklyn collided last night 
and both bent front axles. That puts four 
cars out of business and makes the work 
all the harder for the rest of us. However, 
old Sponagle — "Eddy" — has suddenly 
developed a fit of energy, and is hard on 
the job, so he should get a couple of them 
in commission again soon. 

August 31, Last night it rained and 
blew hard. Wilson thought it was Sunday, 
and ran into a church at Landrecourt, and 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 191 

ruined his front assembly. While I was 
dozing in my car at Verdun, I was awak- 
ened to find it running down the street: 
the wind blew it. Such a surprise! This 
morning, a shell hit the " poste, " but out of 
pure luck no one was hurt; only two cars. 
Francklyn's and White's got "eclats" 
through the radiators. White had just been 
filling his radiator a moment before and 
would have been hit, surely. As luck 
would have it, Paris sent two radiators 
up by "camion" just in time and "Very 
good Eddy" was able to replace them 
without delay. 

This afternoon it looked as if we'd have 
to leave our happy home at Chateau 
Billemont. The Boches took it into their 
heads to throw a few "150's" into it. We 
had grown careless, lately, about leaving 
the cars in the open and not close-shutter- 
ing the windows; hence they had prob- 
ably noticed signs of life about the sup- 
posedly empty place. Luckily the shells 
landed back in the garden and the shoot- 
ing stopped after a few minutes. 

I nearly broke my wrist cranking the 



192 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

car to-day. The claw slipped and let me 
down with my whole weight, but it's only 
sprained; an awful nuisance, as I can't use 
it, and have to crank the motor left- 
handed. 

September 1. The scene is laid before 
Verdun. It is raining like the devil; shells 
are falling; a voice is heard outside the 
cave in the middle of the night. — "I'd 
just like to meet de guy what started 

this G d war, anyway!" — in 

plain American Bowery accents. And in 
splashed a blue-clad Franco-American, 
boss of Senegalese trench-diggers. He 
had lived in New York for ten years; 
now a "sous-officier" and glad to find 
friends. 

The "Germs" shelled out the "poste" 
and the road to-day, when we were on 
day duty. Generally everybody looks for- 
ward to that because it means photos 
and souvenirs. But, to-day, one felt more 
like home and mother! Wallace coming 
to relieve us for lunch had an awfully 
tight squeeze making the hill while we 
watched him. The road there takes a big 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 193 

"S" turn, and the Boches were dropping 
"130's" all along the lower half, trying to 
get the marine "100's" batteries. One 
dropped right ahead of Wallace, and a sec- 
ond ten feet behind him. I don't know 
whether he or we were scared the worst. 
It was new to him, whereas we'd been 
getting Hades since 11 a.m., but each time 
we ducked into the "abri" just in time. 

Nobody cared to ease down to lunch, al- 
though we 'd previously all agreed that we 
were ravenously hungry around eleven 
o'clock. Those appetites faded away some- 
how. Believe me, nobody cared for that 
little lofty spot, although they tell me 
" it 's quite safe, because they 're not shoot- 
ing at it, but at a battery." Of course, I 
know that; we all do. But the same thrill 
gets one's spine when that nasty "ziss- 
bang" comes by, whether they're shooting 
at one or not, especially when the differ- 
ence can't be more than a millimeter on 
the sight and is only a couple of meters at 
our end, seeing that we are on the edge of 
the ravine and our batteries are below us. 
If they hit us, they miss the batteries; and 



194 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

if they hit the batteries, they miss us. I 'm 
(personally) quite unpatriotic when they're 
firing ! 

Our squad was called out again at 2 a.m. 
There had been two Boche attacks on 
Fleury. Incidentally, they'd landed on the 
magazine at Belrupt and the thing was 
going off like a set of fireworks. It kept 
up all night, as the fire could not be con- 
trolled and spread from one store of shells 
and powder to another. The attacks were 
stopped none the less; but "Peter" dis- 
tinguished himself by pulling a brand-new 
kind of bonehead trick. In pushing his car 
from the stand behind the "abri" to the 
door to take on "blesses," he let it get 
away from him, and instead of grabbing 
the steering-wheel or the brake he tried 
to hold it back by hand. The thing 
quietly but firmly toppled over the bank 
into the ravine below. Luckily no one was 
in it or under it, as the spot it landed on 
was just on the edge of a cemetery and, 
mirabile dictu, the car was uninjured; but 
"Huts" Townsend was so provoked that 
he threatened to have "Peter" recalled to 




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ft. w 



H 5 

M 

S3 

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THE BATTLE FORFLEURY 195 

Paris. I don't blame him, as we need every 
car badly. How we got it up on the road 
again, I don't yet know. It took about half 
of Joffre's army and most of the Ameri- 
can Ambulance to do it, by lifting and 
hauling with the aid of many expletives 
both French and English. This morning 
we were all set to washing cars, as there 
is a rumor that the head of the Auto Ser- 
vice is coming to inspect us. A2 Squad has 
therefore had no sleep now for twenty-four 
hours and is on duty again to-night and to- 
morrow night. Cheerful outlook. If some 
more "bones" aren't pulled during the 
next forty-eight hours it will certainly be 
surprising. 

September 4. The last entry in my diary 
proved only too correct. For three days 
there has been heavy fighting around 
Fleury and the French got over a thousand 
prisoners. We have been going steadily. 
First of all, Jack McFadden turned up 
convoying two new men (Lindsay and 
Darden, both Southerners), two new cars, 
and a big White truck and kitchen trailer. 
They used the truck at once to carry 



196 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 



« • 99 



assis" — eighteen at a time — a great 
help, as it takes the place of more than 
three cars. 

On the night of September 2, coming 
down with a load, a shell burst right ahead 
of me, just as I was passing a convoy of 
"75's" ammunition caissons, the horses of 
which were standing, while the drivers had 
ducked for the roadside "abris." The 
shock and flash of the explosion, which 
pasted mud and stones all over the car, 
made the unattended horses wild. It 
seemed for a minute as if I was in the cen- 
ter of a sea of crazy animals. In avoiding 
them I nearly ditched the car and broke 
the front springs, but got away all right. 
Barring a wrecked side box, and a couple 
of rock holes in the side of the car, I was 
able to make two more trips before the 
front construction gave way altogether. 
Luckily this occurred near our canton- 
ment. 

The next night, the 3d of September, 
was a "bird." Pitch black — a fine drizzle 
of rain — heavy attacks by the French, 
which not only caused us to be all ordered 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 197 

out again, but even stimulated the Mede- 
cin Chef into ordering six additional French 
cars to be placed at our disposition in case 
of need. This, of course, got our back up, 
and we just managed to pull through with- 
out using them; but at the cost of the fol- 
lowing accidents: Bowman, stranded by a 
pile of rocks; Jones, ditched; Walker, bun- 
kered in a shell hole; the little "camion" 
broken down; Rice and the little ammuni- 
tion steam train amalgamated together; 
the new White " camion," ditched com- 
pletely and lying on its side. Culbertson 
and Stevenson again proved that two Fords 
cannot occupy the same spot at the same 
time: result, smashed front construction 
and thumb for me, and a ruined radiator 
and steering-gear for Culby. 

This occurred at "dead-man's turn" as 
we call it; Culby coming up empty and I 
going down with a load — absolutely so 
dark that the road was scarcely visible. 
Luckily we both were going slowly; but we 
were unable to fix up No. 10, and so trans- 
ferred the "blesses" to Little. Culby ran 
back to the "poste" to get him. After 



198 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

that we set about fixing up the cars — and 
maybe we did n't hate each other ! Each 
was polite enough to say nothing, after the 
first cursing-out at the time of the smash, 
but we worked in monosyllables. 

In trying to straighten the starting- 
crank of No. 8, Tyng bent the biggest 
monkey wrench into the shape of a fish- 
hook. It then slipped off, and six feet 
three or more of American Ambulance 
driver hit the road with a shock that must 
have disturbed the aim of the French 
battery near by. That broke the tension 
and we both just sat back and roared with 
laughter. After that we worked together 
amicably enough; and finally we agreed 
the blame of the collision lay about fifty- 
fifty. We pushed No. 8 around, after 
vainly trying to straighten the starting- 
crank, and got her going by coasting. We 
certainly worked in a hurry, as dawn was 
due to break in a few minutes, and with 
it would come the customary Boche bom- 
bardment of the road. As it was, several 
marmites lit unpleasantly near. I knocked 
my thumb out of joint on the throttle 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 199 

lever when we hit, and it quickly swelled 
up to the size of a turnip. This, in addi- 
tion to the swelled wrist, made my right 
"mit" pretty nearly useless. We found 
it impossible to straighten the front tri- 
angle of No. 10 sufficiently to steer it, so 
pushed it to the side of the road and went 
down with No. 8 zigzagging in so weird a 
fashion that we must have been taken for 
a couple of drunkards. Culby got her back 
safely, however. We had some break- 
fast and a couple of hours' sleep, and then 
went up again with Roger to put in new 
front constructions. 

The car was in plain view of the Boches, 
but they contented themselves with lob- 
bing "130's" over our heads at the bat- 
tery behind us. It was none the less ner- 
vous work, as we could n't be sure when 
they 'd decide to hand us one for luck. I 
think we established a speed record for 
the reparation in question. 

Baylies came back from a run to-night 
and remarked that he couldn't under- 
stand why it was so dark. Vic White 
rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said, 



200 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

"Well, you see, Baylies, I think it was 
four — no, let me see, yes — possibly five 
hours ago that the sun set, and you know 
it's really apt to get dark at such times." 
September 5. Vic had a regular " meller- 
drammer, father-save-the-cheild " time 
last night. He had three " blesses graves " 
in his car, and, in crossing the railway 
track, got his rear wheel caught and had 
to stop. He went to his tool-box and 
found that somebody had " borrowed " 
his jack, and as all his " blesses " were 
"couches," they could n't help him. Just 
then a man with a lantern came running 
up — "Allez vite! allez vite!" he cried; 
"le train arrive!" Just in the nick of time 

— as is ever the " mellerdrammer's " way 

— Little came by. They got busy with 
his jack and the train passed as the car 
got off the track. The way Vic tells the 
story is a scream. 

The Senegalese retook the ground lost 
in the Bois Vaux-Chapitre last night, but 
went on farther than they were told to go 
and were annihilated. Of one whole bat- 
talion only six survived; but luckily the 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 201 

reinforcements were rushed up in time to 
hold and consolidate the ground gained. 
They say the charge was frightful. They 
bayoneted every Boche and cut off his 
head with their big knives — a cross be- 
tween a machete and a cutlass. Sometimes 
they did both; and when they stick the 
bayonet in, they usually pull the trigger 
at the same time, so there are few Boches 
wounded. In fact, I am told the white 
officers give instructions just before the 
final rush to kill every white man, as 
some of the negroes are so stupid that they 
can't tell the difference between a Boche 
and any one else, especially in the dark. 
Naturally the French officers do not lead 
these charges. 

My hand hurts like the dickens; but I 
am rolling. I only hope I don't have to 
replace a tire, as I have no strength in the 
right grip. Walker was so careful to avoid 
the shell hole he fell into last night, on 
the right side of the road, that to-night he 
eased into one exactly opposite it on the 
left side ! He got rolling again with the aid 
of a large part of Joffre's army. The " ca- 



202 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

mion" was also dug out of the ditch with 
cheers and is working again, thank good- 
ness. It saves us many trips with "assis," 
and lets us take care of the really urgent 
cases much better. They say that when it 
toppled over the bank, there were seven 
French wounded sitting on one side and 
eight Boches on the other, and as the 
French were on the up side they fell on 
the Boches, who thought they were being 
attacked again. It was quite a job to get 
them all extricated; but apparently the 
mix-up did little harm to any one. 

I carried a regular " pousse-caf e" of a 
load this afternoon: a Boche, an English- 
man, a Senegalese, a Martiniquan, and a 
Frenchman, with an American driving. 

I slipped down to the "75" battery last 
night with an artillery corporal, and he let 
me pull the string. I hope I landed a cou- 
ple. Anyway, it is some satisfaction to 
have handed the " Germs " one, for all they 
've "wished" on us. This afternoon, as we 
have expected all along, they started in 
to shell our perfectly good chateau. One 
shell dropped right close to Roche, who 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 203 

was covered with fine stones and mud. For 
some time after he was even picking bits 
out of his hair. Culbertson, who also was 
near, dived under his car. Nearly all the 
machines were more or less sprinkled, but 
the house was not touched. They dropped 
about five or six in all, I understand, al- 
though some of the "brethren" insisted 
upon it that at least twenty came our way. 
I was out at the "poste" at the time. 

Culby remarked that if one wanted to 
be safe now, one might just as well go up 
to the "poste" as anywhere else. They 
were shelling the road around there, too, 
this afternoon, and also Verdun itself. Al- 
together the "Hymn of Hate" rang loud 
to-day. 

One of the worst local disasters of the 
Verdun battle has just occurred. The rail- 
road tunnel at Fort Tavannes caught fire 
last night. One end was blocked against 
the Germans and the tunnel used for 
storing supplies, powders, chemicals, and 
ammunition. Also the Division "bran- 
cardiers" and staff of doctors, some six 
hundred in all, lived there, and it was 



204 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

used as a "poste de secours. " The entire 
crowd were wiped out. Nobody could help 
them and we could only watch helplessly 
as the smoke kept pouring out of the tun- 
nel all day. It was purely an accident, not 
due to Boche efforts. 

September 6. They shelled us again last 
night, but most of the shells were squibs. 
They did n't explode because of landing 
in soft mud. The house was n't touched 
even. Somebody remarked at breakfast 
that these Austrian Skoda guns certainly 
could shell a long way. "Yes, they can," 
was the reply, "right across Switzerland." 
Those which were really handed us, how- 
ever, were about "155's" or "210's" ma- 
rine shells, as they had the soft-metal point 
covering for armor penetrating, instead of 
the ordinary time or contact fuse. They 
came from down the river in the direction 
of Bras; but of course the shellee always 
feels that he is receiving the largest mis- 
siles in captivity. 

I ran across a funny " brancardier " 
to-day — a new hand — who insisted on 
swabbing out the blood before putting 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 205 

"blesses" in the car. He said the sight 
was bad for them. The delay is a nui- 
sance, as often the cars fairly run blood, 
but he '11 learn better after a while. As for 
the "blesses" they're generally too dazed 
to notice anything. There was heavy 
fighting in the Vaux - Chapitre Wood, 
to-day; also on both sides of Fleury. The 
French are nearly at Thiaumont now. The 
smoke of the battle almost hid the moon 
for a time last night. We received a gas 
warning, but it did n't materialize. One 
man I carried, by the way, asked me where 
I came from; and when I answered, 
"America," he said: "I know, but what 
city." I said, "Philadelphia." "Thought 
so," he said; "I lived for years at 13th 
and Pine Streets and taught in the Ber- 
litz School there"! 

He described the fighting now going on 
as the worst of the war. The relieving 
parties have to throw the bits of human 
bodies out of the shell holes, in order to 
occupy them. When a shell falls near, 
one is spattered with bits of flesh, some- 
times fresh and more often rotten. It may 



208 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

be a comrade or a part of a disinterred 
body. Battalions and divisions melt away 
in three or four days, and have to be re- 
placed. He said that he walked over a 
veritable carpet of Senegalese and Mar- 
tiniquans. General Aimee, of the Sixty- 
seventh, was killed near our "poste" to- 
day. Bowman carried the body down. 

One fellow I brought down told me that 
he had captured a Boche and was taking 
him in when he himself was wounded; but 
the Boche, instead of turning around and 
capturing him, helped him back to the 
French lines and then surrendered. The 
last lot of prisoners are very young, — 
sixteen and seventeen years old, — and 
are easily taken. They say the Germans, 
instead of distributing the latest class of 
recruits among the seasoned regiments, as 
do the French, form new units of them 
and these prove weak. 

Stories of fraternal aid between the op- 
ponents are mingled with others of a blood- 
curdling kind. One man prided himself 
upon having waited until a Boche came 
right up to him, surrendering, and then 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 207 

he blew his head off with a hand-grenade. 
Another story is to the effect that the 
Boches kill off the French wounded lying 
in the shell holes in the same manner. 
This, however, is doubtless in retaliation 
for the Senegalese atrocities. The latter 
carry ears, teeth, fingers, as charms, and 
believe they can't be killed if they wear 
them. 

Bowman ran into a battery of "75's" 
galloping into action last night, but only 
broke his lamps and mudguards. Pretty 
lucky. I nearly got crowned by one of our 
"speed kings" who was chasing around 
the country in a sort of "Fireman-save- 
the-cheild" style. 

September 7. We rolled all night and 
took care of a tremendous number of 
"blesses" (later, I found the exact num- 
ber to be 472, with only fifteen cars and 
the "camion" working). I picked up three 
on the road who had been hit by a mar- 
mite, and had had only first-aid care. 
I rushed them to the emergency hospital 
in the famous Vauban Citadel of Verdun. 
It was the first time that I'd had occasion 



208 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

to enter it. It is a wonderful labyrinth — 
a city in itself, cut out of the solid rock, 
such, I imagine, as Gibraltar must be: 
endless tunnels, rooms, and corridors — 
even a theater and auditorium. 

It certainly is a satisfaction to note the 
contrast in the comments concerning 
the American Ambulance, at the Front, 
from those to which one is forced to listen 
in Paris and other cities far from the lines. 
Here the soldiers can't praise us enough 
and the same is true of the officers and 
even of the priests. Many soldiers make 
it a point to salute the ambulances when 
they catch sight of the now familiar cars 
and uniforms, because they have heard 
of the quickness and comfortable springs 
— so different from the ordinary type of 
"camion" ambulance. 

"Ah, c'est les volontaires! Bon!" is a 
common phrase from a wounded man. 
This, however, does not apply to the Sene- 
galese, who very often take us for Boches, 
and it gives one an uncomfortable feeling 
of doubt about their intentions. They 
have often been known to jump at Boche 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 209 

prisoners or "blesses," and they have to 
be watched carefully by their officers. 

September 8. A touch of autumn in the 
air. These are great days. The weather 
is better and the Allies are advancing. 
Even here at Verdun we are making tiny 
gains. The Boches attacked in the Bois 
Vaux-Chapitre again this morning, with gas 
and a terrific " tir de barrage"; but they 
were stopped without much effort. We 
carried only 169 wounded. My last drive 
down the Souville hill, called the Cote de 
Meuse, brought a wonderful sight. The 
sun rose blood-red through the clouds of 
smoke and gas. Then a little wind sprang 
up and cleared the mists of battle away 
in just one spot, and a shaft of bright, 
golden light fell full on the great cathedral 
of Verdun towering above the town, still 
in semi-darkness. All hailed it as a good 
omen. In the low places men were wear- 
ing masks and the smell of gas was very 
strong — a sweetish odor as from a candy- 
factory. 

September 9. The Commander of the 
214th arrived with his regiment last night 



210 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

to relieve the 67th. We carried his body 
down this morning. He had n't been at 
the Front three hours before a shell got 
him! 

Ned Townsend — our archaeologist — 
brought in the biggest find yet to-day: 
the whole barrel of a wrecked "soixante- 
quinze." First he went after it with a wheel- 
barrow and could n't manage it, and then 
came back and got a Ford. He explained 
that the difference between a Ford and a 
wheelbarrow was that the latter had only 
one wheel. He set it up in the front 
"lawn," but the "Loot" had a fit. He 
said it was bad enough to have the Boche 
"saucisses" and planes see all the cars 
about; but if they saw a gun emplaced, 
they'd simply shell the tar out of us. So 
Ned had to disassemble his masterpiece. 
He is a crank ! — trophy-hunting all the 
time. He goes around with a trench 
shovel, a hammer, and a chisel. The 
Frenchmen around the "poste" derive no 
end of amusement out of him. He is so 
keen on getting hold of all the junk there 
is. How he expects to get it all away from 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 211 

here without a corps of "camions" and 
a special freight ship is beyond me. 

September 10. Well, we go "en repos" 
to-morrow. To-day we are loafing and 
packing up. Oddly enough, this is the 
date of the end of my enlistment in the 
Field Service. I'm already a month over 
my enlistment with the Ambulance, but 
I think I'll hang on a little longer. We 
tried hard to get transferred to still an- 
other Division, and to hold on to the Front 
Service and our bully cantonment, — the 
best the Section ever had; but as we have 
been on the Souville job longer than any 
Section has been since the beginning of the 
attack on Verdun last February, they told 
us we must take a rest. Also we must go 
back to the Thirty-second Division again, 
which has been re-formed (it lost some 
fifty per cent of its strength in four days), 
and is now at Thiaucourt. They were all 
extremely sorry to see us go, and we have 
heard nothing but pretty speeches from 
both officers and men. 

September 12. The fact that our Divi- 
sion had been pretty well hammered 



212 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

turned out luckily for us. Naturally, when 
a Division is cut to pieces, the "Service 
de Sante" gets more than the ordinary 
work. Hence, when it came to distribut- 
ing the war crosses, the " brancardiers," 
doctors, and others came in for more than 
their usual share. "Huts" Townsend was 
cited by Order of the Army Corps and 
everybody was happy about it. Bowman 
and Francklyn were also cited. The for- 
mer got a shell hole through his car which 
wounded one of his "blesses" a second 
time, while Francklyn got knocked down 
by the concussion of a shell as he was 
loading his car. The ceremony occurred 
here at Thiaucourt when we arrived this 
afternoon. We are quartered on the 
grounds of the chateau of President Poin- 
care's brother. The "blonde" was glad 
to see us, as were all the natives, including 
Francklyn's washerwoman. We had fun 
with "Gillies," who was exceedingly ner- 
vous. We told him that he should wear 
gloves at the ceremony, so he chased all 
over the place to get a pair, and actually 
appeared with them ! He surely got a laugh. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 213 

September 13. Section No. 1 cited by Or- 
der of the Army Corps ! This puts us "top 
dog" of all the foreign Sections. The cita- 
tion originated from the Sixty-eighth 
Division for which we worked during the 
last ten days of our stay at Verdun. Cul- 
bertson and Bowman left on their "per- 
mission" this morning. The "Loot" 
made a dandy speech last night, telling us 
what he thought of us and eulogizing 
"Huts." Then the Croix men produced 
champagne. Culby's evening was some- 
what marred by the "Loot" happening to 
discover a large canvas bag of his, full of 
trophies, and, of course, he had to make 
him open it. He only abstracted some 
bayonets, though, and left him his casings, 
and other things. The "Loot" hates to 
do this, but has to according to the Regu- 
lations, and he frequently warns us when 
he is about to make an inspection; so it 
was entirely Culby's fault he was stung. 
I shipped a big box of junk to Paris as 
soon as the warning came. The Lieuten- 
ant came back from headquarters this 
morning with the news that the Section 



214 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

that replaced us at Souville had had four 
men killed and three wounded, while six 
" brancardiers " were also wounded at the 
"poste" the very day we left. A shell 
burst among them while they were load- 
ing the cars. One man lost both legs and 
another one is not expected to live. One 
car was completely wrecked. We cer- 
tainly were lucky. That's the second time 
a replacing Section has had men injured 
following us. At Tavannes a car was lost 
and two men badly hurt. 

Copy of letter dated " Grand Quartier " 
le 1 Septembre 1916 

fitat-Major 32 me Division. 

Le General Bouchez, Commandant la 32 me 
Div. d'Infantrie. 
Le General commandant la 32 me division 
adresse tous ses remerciements a la Section 
Sanitaire Americaine No. 1. Pendant la pe- 
riode du 20 au 30 aout la Section sous les 
ordres du Lieutenant de Kersauson et du sous- 
Lieutenant To wnsend, a assure, dans le secteur 
le plus bombarde de Verdun, l'evacuation des 
blesses. Tous les conducteurs ont en maintes 
circonstances fait preuve de courage et de 
sang-froid. lis ont fait 1' admiration de tous 




< « 

is 

3 > 

si 

> 02 



5 ~ 

O p 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 215 

ceux qui les ont vu accomplir leur devoir. 
Toute la Division leur est reconnaissante de 
leur devouement pour les blesses et est fiere 
d'avoir compte dans ses rangs des volontaires 
Americains dignes descendants de Franklin et 
de Washington. 

(Signe) Bouchez. 

Copy of letter dated " Grand Quartier " EtaU 
Major — Service de Sante 

Le Medecin principal de l re classe de Casau- 
bon — Medecin Divisionnaire a la Sec- 
tion Sanitaire Americaine No. 1. 

Aux felicitations et aux remerciements 
adresses' par le General commandant la 32 me 
Division a la S.S.A.A. No. 1, le Medecin Di- 
visionnaire ajoute ses felicitations et ses re- 
merciements personnels. 

II a vu la S.S.A.A. No. 1 a l'oeuvre. II 
a pu s'assurer qu'elle avait realise ce qu'il 
attendait d'elle; de son courage calme et 
souriant, de son devouement absolu, de son 
ardeur a faire le mieux possible pour le plus 
grand avantage de nos blesses. 

Le Medecin Divisionnaire conservera des 
jours de Verdun un souvenir inoubliable dans 
lequel tiendront une belle place les distingues 
officiers qui commandent la section et leurs 
vaillants conducteurs volontaires. 

(Signe) de Casaubon. 



216 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

September 14. I certainly did n't ex- 
pect to continue this diary after Septem- 
ber 10, when my enlistment expired, but 
I have agreed to stick along for another 
three months. The big push is gaining in 
intensity and it 's hardly the time to quit, 
although I'm afraid that we are side- 
tracked in the Argonne again. However, 
I hope for the best. 

September 15. To-day the Section moved 
to the so-called "Front" again, but in the 
Argonne this time. A little place, named 
La Grange-au-Bois, near Ste. Menehould, 
where Louis XVI was kept by the Revo- 
lutionists when he was caught. I saw the 
room in the Town Hall where he was 
prisoner. The "Loot " announced at din- 
ner last night that two cars would have 
to remain for a couple of days with the 
Etat-Major. He said he wanted two men 
who would talk French and dress de- 
cently, and then picked Roche and me! 
I took the Commandant all around north- 
ern France to-day, and Roche had to run 
to Bar-le-Duc. To-morrow, at 5 a.m., 
I've got to be on the job again to take 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 217 

the Commandant to the advance posts. 
The warfare on the Argonne line is rather 
different from other parts, being almost 
entirely confined to vast mining opera- 
tions; and the "Genie" are therefore the 
main thing. Of course, there is also the 
usual artillery hammering, but little in- 
fantry fighting. They say this mining is 
very hard on the morale of the men, as 
they are blown up by regiments instead 
of companies; but of course the explosions 
are relatively few and far between, as com- 
pared to the regular "tir de barrage" 
work. 

September 16. I lunched with officers at 
their quarters back of the chateau, in a 
little cottage fitted with old furniture 
which made one's mouth water. There 
was a chest of drawers and a grandfather's 
clock that any collector would have given 
several hundred dollars to have; and I 
suppose they could have been bought for 
a song if only we had the means of getting 
them away and of packing them properly. 

A swanking young officer who has been 
"embusqueing" in the Automobile De- 



218 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

partment, wearing fancy khaki clothes, 
got caught to-day, and has been sent into 
the regular line work. The army is gradu- 
ally sifting out the "embusques" (young 
men of military age who are hiding in soft 
jobs), and replacing them with older men 
whose term of service is ended — a good 
thing. 

Old Roger has been fired by the "Loot " 
for impertinence. I was sorry to see him 
go, he was so typical of the soldier of 
Napoleon's time. Big, broad-shouldered, 
with the bristling mustache and imperial. 
I fancy he did n't mind going much, as 
he was a regular soldier and not an auto- 
mechanic. Perhaps we '11 get a really good 
"mec " this time to help out "Very good 
Eddy" and Rapp. 

September 17. We have arrived at La 
Grange-aux-Bois on the main Govern- 
ment road between Paris and Metz. We 
are camped here in a somewhat leaky barn 
about seven or eight kilometers from the 
Front. The customary rain has been fall- 
ing ever since. The "postes " to which we 
go are unusually close to the lines. There 's 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 219 

nothing doing, however, except intermit- 
tent bombardment. I was asked to-day by 
an apparently intelligent-looking French- 
man if I was American, and when I said 
"Yes," he said he supposed I came from 
Buenos Aires! It seemed to be the only 
town in the Western Hemisphere he 'd ever 
heard of. He also asked if America was a 
Republic. Of course, there followed the 
customary inquiries, if we were volunteers, 
and how much we were paid; and when I 
said, on the contrary it cost us money, he 
became very much offended and walked 
himself off as if I was trying to make a fool 
of him ! 

September 18. Crowds of Russians are 
here. We thought the Champagne attack 
had started at last, according to what we 
heard from them and also judging from 
the increasing activity of the guns to our 
left. This proved not to be the case, al- 
though everybody thought so at the time. 
We are doing our best to get transferred 
back to the Colonials who are working 
with the Russians only a few kilometers 
from here. I did the customary chauffeur- 



220 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

taxi work to-day. I took three joy-riding 
officers into Ste. Menehould, where they 
stayed for a couple of hours and came back 
with two live chickens, which I was told 
to carry over to the car, just like " Jimes 
in the ply" because it looked "odd" for 
them to do it. However, it 's amusing and 
I don't give a hang anyway, as we are 
here to help the French!! 

September 21. The only advance 
"postes" we have which are really worth 
while evacuate the "Four de Paris" and 
"La Fille Morte." There Germans are in 
sight and the " camoufl eurs " have been 
busy screening the road. There are some 
fine trenches, and redoubts beautifully 
fixed up and electrified around here; but 
the fighting is only sporadic. The Boches 
attacked the other night, but were easily 
repulsed, and one car was able to handle 
the "blesses." Nobody pays any atten- 
tion to the fact that the Boches are so 
close; and every one walks around uncon- 
cernedly, not thinking of entering the dug- 
outs except for meals or when it rains. 
Culbertson and Bowman are back from 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 221 

their "permissions." The first casualty 
for Section No. 1 occurred to-day when 
Kurtz ran a bayonet through his hand 
while using it to sling apples. He was 
treated at the hospital. 

A lot of the men are down with bad 
colds and grippe, however, as it has rained 
nearly all the time since we have been 
here, and the barracks are simply soaking 
wet. I sleep on a cot with a rubber sheet 
over my blankets and the rain pours 
through the leaky roof, splashing dismally 
all night. Sponagle left his boots care- 
lessly out from under his cot last night, 
and in the morning they were full of 
water which he poured into a basin for 
washing, thereby saving a trip to the spring ! 
The stove, which we stole from another 
barrack, only works at intervals and usu- 
ally chokes and fills the place with smoke. 
The rats crawl all over the place, too; but 
the twenty cots Christine sent us save those 
who have them from this particular an- 
noyance. Half the squad was taken in the 
"camion" to Ste. Menehould yesterday 
for a hot bath, the first I'd had in over 



AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

two months, when I was last in Paris ! Our 
clothes did n't fit us when we came out — 
just hung limply over our thinned-down 
figures. Kurtz gave a birthday party night 
before last. He had the "eats" sent from 
Chalons. — It was great ! — mushroom 
omelet, real peas, chops, tomato soup, 
fresh fromage a la creme, and cham- 
pagne. 

September 22. This is real life. I learn a 
new trade every day. I 've just been put- 
ting a new roof on the barracks; tar pa- 
per and laths. Two sets of us tried rival 
methods — up-and-down strips or shingles 
effect, and we 're now hoping for rain (hav- 
ing had only this one clear day in three 
weeks) in order to test the two theories. 
"Jack" McFadden turned up to-day to 
take one of the old cars down. He tells us 
there's a chance for Salonika. Section 3 
has come out of the Vosges and is at Ver- 
sailles, and they may go right off. It should 
be quite a trip. If they do put that 
through, we should try for Egypt — a nice 
soft place to spend the winter. 

September 23. Culby had some funny 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 223 

times in Paris. He met X, whose wife had 
just threatened to come over to see him. 
He cabled, "I love you, I love you, but 
stay where you are ! " The censor read this 
effusion, studied it, shook his head, and 
decided it was a new sort of code that he 
did n't understand and refused to pass it. 
Culby also met "Tommy " Holt and "Bill " 
Hoovler, of Section 2, who are going 
home. 

Culby tried to climb over the Gare de 
l'Est fence, one night, in a search for food, 
and got caught on a spike and hung dan- 
gling by the seat of his pants, until a gen- 
darme came along and unhooked him as 
he would a ham! It must have been a 
weird sight to come across a six-foot-three- 
inch soldier hanging on a fence doubled 
like a sack in that casual manner. 

Culby ran into the American Flying 
Squad in Paris. They were in process of 
being transferred from Verdun to the 
Vosges and were celebrating. They had 
somewhere purchased a young lion cub, 
which they dragged around from hotel to 
hotel for five days, much to the consterna- 



224 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

tion of the inhabitants and to the annoy- 
ance of the lion, which kept up a steady 
stream of growls and snarls. He had only 
just been weaned and liked to have a finger 
to suck; but if the owner wished to with- 
draw it, there was nothing doing until 
the lion wanted him to. Culby had to sit 
perfectly still with his finger in its mouth 
for an hour, and he said it was the worst 
experience he'd had since Verdun. 

The balance of Christine's cots arrived 
this afternoon amid loud cheers. 

September 24. A telegram arrived from 
Andrew, calling for volunteers for Salonika. 
I wish I could go; but one has to engage 
for seven months; also Section 3 is being 
used as a nucleus. If we could only go un- 
der Townsend and our "Loot" I think the 
whole Section would jump at the chance. 
Francklyn, Bowman, Imbrie, Baylies, 
Culbertson, and Roche said they could go; 
but it is understood that only three or four 
from each of the Field Sections will be 
picked according to length of service. We 
have a new decoration now: the order of 
the Golden Baylies with fig leaves and 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 225 

moons instead of palms and stars. Jones 
was the first to receive it last night for 
revoking at bridge. Rice pulled a new 
method of getting the men up this morn- 
ing. Instead of the customary evacuation 
by upsetting the bed, he threatened to 
write a poem about the men who were 
still in their blankets. That was sufficient 
to bring all out standing. 

September 26. I went over to Edward 
Kelly's funeral with "Huts," Vic, and 
Roche. The ceremony was impressive; of 
course, Catholic. It was held at Blercourt, 
near the Mort Homme. Section 2 took over 
Section 4's job for the day, so that all of 
them could attend. Section 4 is at Ipe- 
court and 2 at Rampont. A few Section 2 
men are also there and a couple of Section 
3, as well as one of Section 7 (Norton). 
Sections 8 and 9 being in the Vosges 
could n't send any one nor did the Paris 
Squad. Andrew came up, of course. In 
all, there were about thirty-five Americans 
who filled the left side of the little church 
at Blercourt. The other half was filled 
with high French officers including the 



226 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Medecin Directeur, who carries the rank 
of a two-star General. Andrew sat with 
them. "Huts" and the other American 
Lieutenants were grouped together. The 
choir, made up of good French singers, 
picked from the Division, sang "La Mort" 
— a singularly fitting tribute as the acci- 
dent occurred near the famous hill of that 
name. 

The coffin was surrounded with funeral 
wreaths sent by the various officers, the 
"brancardiers," the hospitals, and the 
various Sections. Over it was the French 
flag and a heap of the little purple cro- 
cuses which have come up so strangely 
for the second time this autumn. They 
looked like a heap of orchids. On a pillow 
carried by Section 4's American Lieuten- 
ant was a little American flag, such as the 
ambulances carry, and on it was pinned 
the Croix de Guerre with a gold star. 

After the coffin had been carried from 
the church to the grave by six French 
"poilus" in full accouterments as a mark 
of honor, and the priest was through, the 
General stepped up and paid a wonderful 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 227 

tribute to the American volunteers, ad- 
dressing Andrew, who was crying. In 
fact, even some of the Frenchmen cried. 
It was a speech one could never forget. 
Some of us afterwards went over to the 
hospital to see Sanders; but he was in a 
state of coma and could n't recognize any 
one. He had been already trepanned twice, 
and they were waiting until he could get 
a little strength, to extract the bad piece 
in the back of his head. The danger lies 
in the possibility of infection before he 
gets enough strength to stand the opera- 
tion. 

William W. Wallace, who washed Kelly's 
brains out of Sanders's car, told Roche 
and me the story of the accident. Kelly 
was new. He had been at the Section only 
five or six days and had not even been 
assigned a car. Indeed, one of the most 
pathetic things about it was that his 
mates did n't know his first name, even, 
and I had to get it from their Lieutenant. 
He was taken by Sanders as orderly to 
see the advance post at Esnes, on the 
side of Hill 304, near the Mort Homme. 



228 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

There had been nothing doing there for 
a month or more. In fact all the fighting 
was on the right bank, around Fleury 
and the Froide-Terre. So that, barring 
the customary shelling, it was practically 
a quiet Sector. Well, they got within 
a hundred yards of the "abri," when the 
shell burst on the road about ten feet 
in front of the car. It blew in the radia- 
tor, but otherwise did not injure the 
car. Kelly received the charge full in the 
head. Sanders was only hit by three 
small "eclats, " two of which cut his cheeks 
and neck. The third entered his mouth, 
and breaking his left teeth lodged in the 
left side of his skull, where it still is. The 
force had been checked by the steering 
wheel which was first hit by all three 
"eclats." Sanders was able to stop the 
car and walk about halfway to the "abri " 
calling, before he fell. Gooch, who had ar- 
rived a few minutes before, heard a "bran- 
cardier" shouting for a stretcher and got 
one out of his car. Not until he actually 
got a lantern and saw Sanders, did he 
know that any of our men had been hurt. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 229 

He asked Sanders about Kelly and San- 
ders gasped out, "Kelly's dead," and 
then fainted. 

September 27. "Huts" and I, after the 
funeral, went over to Bar-le-Duc and 
fetched up Tison, 1 who came across about 
the same time I did, and was sent to Sec- 
tion 3. When Section 3 was picked for 
Salonika, Tison could n't go, as he had to 
get back to the States by the first of the 
year. So he comes to us to take the place 
of one of our three who are going to Sa- 
lonika. They leave shortly. We gave Im- 
brie and Francklyn a sort of farewell sup- 
per last night. They are going to be a great 
loss. Tison is a good fellow, however. Only 
about six feet four inches high. When 
he, Culby, and Roche come into a cafe, 
the whole conversation stops. Everybody 
turns to see the giants. Pity we have n't 
still got Lathrop. There 'd be twenty-five 
feet of America represented by four men. 

September 28. On twenty-four hour 
"poste" duty at "Le Chalet," the evacu- 
ating post for the "Four de Paris" and 

1 Paul Tison, Harvard; New York City. 



230 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

"La Fille Morte." I went up to the front 
lines to have a look at the Boches. In one 
"poste d'ecoute" we were within four 
or five yards of the Germans, they told 
me; but there was nothing to hear or see, 
so we came away. Except for a few rifle 
shots, scattered through the woods, and 
an occasional aerial torpedo, fired from the 
little trench mortars called "crapouillots," 
which throw about a hundred pounds 
of dynamite some eight hundred yards, 
everything was quiet. The battle-line, 
however, was very definitely marked by 
the blasting away of every trace of vege- 
tation. The thick woods and under- 
growth stop suddenly, and one comes to 
nothing but bare rocks, and earth, and 
stumps of trees. It looks as if some great 
flood or fire had swept along a perfectly 
defined line across the country, in a path 
about a mile wide. Last night I was 
awakened by the car shaking as if some 
one was rocking it. I thought at first that 
they had a call forme, but looked out and 
found nothing. This morning I was told 
that the Boches had exploded a big mine 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 231 

up the ravine. Mines make practically no 
noise — just a sort of muffled detonation; 
but the earth shakes for miles. 

The " Genie " are certainly sincere liquor 
artists. We eat with them at the Chalet 
Poste, and they do their best to entertain 
us. Most of the men have been in this 
one place for a year or more burrowing 
like moles. They say their little motto 
is, "Mangez beaucoup, buvez beaucoup, 
dormez beaucoup, et travaillez peu!" We 
have their keg of Pinard filled for them at 
La Grange every day. 

Old " Wilkins" Wilson, who has a per- 
fectly good sense of humor, has doped 
out a schedule of simple phrases with their 
English translation for use at the " postes." 
He is going to hang up a copy in each 
"poste," and they run something like 
this: — 

Will you come to lunch? 

Have you had enough? 

Will you have a drink? 

Will you have another? 

Will you take the Pinard barrel to be filled? 

Is the Pinard barrel empty? 

Yes, the Pinard barrel is empty. 



232 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

September 30. The Salonikans left to- 
day and Francklyn took little "Vic" with 
him, which I think almost peeved Section 
1 as much as the loss of the men. Fond as 
they were of "Gillies" and Bob, "Vic" 
had come to be considered our mascot and 
knew us all well. He would associate with 
no one else. Peter Avard picked him up at 
Vic-sur-Aisne, about a year ago, when he 
was only a few weeks old, and some one 
always took the pup up to the firing-lines 
in a car, riding cheerfully on the front seat 
or on the hood. The "poilus" and "bran- 
cardiers" all knew him and patted and 
fed him. I believe "Vic" has been under 
fire more often than any one of us ex- 
cepting possibly "Huts" and the "Loot." 
When Pete left the Section he left the dog 
under Francklyn's care, so that he got to 
be regarded as Gyles's pup. We have lost 
most of our menagerie. Only the brown 
mutt, who looks like the result of a 
mesalliance between a cockroach and a 
seal, remains. The "Loot " calls him 
"Flip" and claims he is a pointer! Ned 
Townsend is down with diphtheria and 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 233 

left to-day for the Bar-le-Duc Hospital. 
This leaves us four men shy, but as there 
is nothing to do, except the two "poste" 
runs and an occasional "bureau" call, we 
can afford to lie low and look over the new 
men carefully before picking any. 

October 1. Vic White left to-day; the 
worst loss since "Woody." We gave him 
a dinner last night, but it was not a par- 
ticularly cheerful function. The squad is 
certainly being shot to pieces. Since I 
joined last March it has lost some half- 
dozen men and has only three left from the 
days of Dunkerque and Ypres, a year 
and a half ago. 

I went over to La Controllerie with 
Eddy Sponagle in the "camion" to-day, 
to carry a load of gas masks to Rare- 
court, just beyond the two ruined towns of 
Les Islettes and Clermont. The church 
spire at the former was just touched by a 
shell and leans over in a drunken sort of 
way like a child's broken toy. Clermont 
is beautiful in its desolation, and nature 
is already busy covering the ruins with 
ivy and other creepers, although the shell- 



234 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

ing only occurred last February at the 
opening of the Boche drive on Verdun, 
both towns being on one of the "ravitaille- 
ment" roads leading there. Now the ruins 
are toned down and the autumn foliage is 
very beautiful. By the time the ubiqui- 
tous American tourist comes camera-snap- 
ping and souvenir-hunting, however, na- 
ture will have hidden much of the stark 
harshness still to be seen. The handsome 
church on the top of the hill, reached by a 
long flight of some hundred or more wide 
stone steps, is completely gutted ; and the 
fine stucco work and stained-glass windows 
litter the floor. From there we could eas- 
ily see the lines five miles away and the 
shells bursting. 

October 3. Bowman changed his mind 
about Salonika, and Baylies gets his chance 
to go. Everybody is sorry to lose him — 
a good boy, good-tempered, standing all 
the chaffing in a really fine way. 

We were inspected for contagious and 
infectious diseases to-day. 

Some of the fellows had an amusing time 
up at La Chalade Poste the other day. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 235 

They got to swapping hunting yarns with 
the doctors and "brancardiers." Little 
told them of a wonderful animal in the 
States. Its habitat was the Rocky Moun- 
tains and it was called the "Flipodoodle." 
It has two of its legs on one side shorter 
than the others, so that it could walk on 
the sides of mountains, but it could, of 
course, go only one way. He told it so 
solemnly that the Frenchmen believed it, 
until Vic, later, overdid the story. They 
asked him if it were true, and he said 
"yes" he had seen the animal; that the 
male always had two females because they 
could only give birth to one and a half 
offspring apiece and the halves had to be 
joined together afterwards. He added that 
it was the only animal known to man 
which was larger at birth than at any other 
time. This offended the medical sense 
of the doctors and they got sore. Vic 
saw that and added, "Well, I guess you 
won't believe I saw the devil once?" 
"When?" they exclaimed. "Thirty-five 
years ago," said Vic. " How old are you? " 
they queried incredulously. "Just twent- 



236 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

four," replied Vic. "You can believe one 
tale as much as the other." Then they 
all laughed and said the drinks were on 
them. 

October 5. I went to Chalons with 
Sponagle, De Mare, and Bonat, in the 
"camion," for "ravitaillement." Bonat 
bought lunch and it sure was a good one. 
We had a bath and altogether a fine day. 
A " sous-omcier " up at the "poste" tells 
me he has been playing chess with the 
Boches. They call the moves across the 
few intervening feet, and they have a per- 
fectly good time, mutually cutting out 
the hand-grenades. 

We got a letter to-day addressed from 
one of the "nuts" on "permission" down 
in Paris to Section "Solitaire" Americaine, 
and nothing else. Strange as it may 
seem, the postal authorities saw the point 
and delivered it! As old "Doc" Wilkins 
would say, "Rauther good, eh, wot? I 
should say so, don't ye know! Yes, bah 
Jove!" 

October 6. I was passing along the road 
when I heard some "kids" singing an air 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 237 

which seemed familiar. I stopped and 
listened, and sure enough! they were 
singing: — 

" Yip hayaddi, hayah hyo 
Yip hayaddi hayay, 
I don't care what becomes of me," etc. 

They evidently learned it from some 
passing British troops or some itinerant 
American "Ambulancier." 

October 7. On "poste" duty at La 
Chalade. The "poste " is in the old abbey; 
a fine historic building of large size. The 
men have been finding old coins of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in 
odd corners of the place. The Boches shell 
it occasionally, and it has been hit a num- 
ber of times, but is still in fair shape. 

Pons, the little one-stripe doctor, tried 
to pull one on the two priests at dinner. 
He produced two bottles labeled "Pom- 
mard." One was just plain Pinard, the 
other Chateau Margaut. The Pinard was 
served first, but the priests were polite and 
said it was very nice, but not a "grand 
cru." Then he opened the Bordeaux,which 
was real, and they told the difference at 



238 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

once. One can't fool those old fellows. 
They declared it promptly not even Bur- 
gundy, but Bordeaux. 

October 8. Two new men turned up to- 
day. One is the son of former Mayor Gay- 
nor, the other Newberry, also of New 
York. They seem pretty good fellows, but 
they certainly did n't expect much rough 
living. Both are accustomed to the simple 
New York life, and they don't know how 
to make a camp bed or even wind their 
putties. However, they look as if they 'd 
turn out all right. 

October 9. Wandering through the ceme- 
tery here at La Grange aux Bois, the name 
Du Pont caught my eye on one of the new 
war crosses. No less then three were bur- 
ied here in the last year — Joseph, Joseph 
Henry, and Ernest. I wonder if they are 
any relation to our Du Ponts. Also Louis 
Martin was buried there — it sounds like 
the old New York restaurateur. The sol- 
diers have made ingenious crosses out of 
"75" cases; and the central cemetery 
cross is made of wood wrought in a gi- 
gantic replica of the Croix de Guerre. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 239 

October 11. Culby got shot at up at the 
Fille Morte Poste this morning by a sniper 
in a tree. The bullet hit quite close to him 
while he was standing on the little bridge 
looking up the ravine. This, and the 
shelling of " Doc " Keenan's car (Section 4) , 
near where Kelly was killed, are the first 
definite instances I know of where the 
Boches deliberately have fired on the 
American Ambulance. Of course they 
often shell places where we happen to be, 
but they are not after such small fry as 
a rule. News came to-day, by the way, 
that our old Caserne Marceau Poste de 
Secours, under Souville, had been de- 
stroyed by shells. We had a hunch it would 
be, if they kept piling sand bags on top of 
it, as it was beginning to assume the as- 
pect of a regular redoubt. The "poste" 
has been moved about a half-mile down 
the hill to the railway crossing. 

Mrs. Vanderbilt's sheepskin coats ar- 
rived to-day and were hailed with grate- 
ful hurrahs! They can start fighting in 
the Arctic now, as far as the American 
Ambulance is concerned. 



240 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

October 13. For some strange reason 
the sun came out yesterday, so the "breth- 
ren" jumped at the chance to dry out 
blankets, shoes, and bags. Darden got so 
energetic that he set to work making a rat- 
trap — a most elaborate affair which 
would require quite a high order of intel- 
ligence on the part of the rat to manage 
to get into. He explained, in his funny 
Southern drawl, that he was "gitten 
tiahd of havin' dem dawg-goned animals 
conductin' their love affairs on mah baid !" 
The trap, however, failed to work, which 
was explained by Darden by their "bein' 
French, they probably did n't understand 
an American trap!" Culbertson then 
went to Ste. Menehould and purchased a 
gigantic wire structure which he carried 
all around town with him, and was asked 
at least a dozen times what it was for. 
At last he grew tired and replied to an- 
other polite inquiry on the part of a French 
officer that it was "pour mon canary 
oiseau!" The rats had a fine time feeding 
in it, but refused to remain within its 
handsome portals. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 241 

October 14. Lines came to-day. He used 
to be with this Section at Dunkerque. He 
got sick, then joined Section 8, and got 
transferred back here. 1 Jones, Wallace, 
and Walker left on "permission." Camp- 
bell is made "sous-chef" .in place of 
White. 

October 17. The "Genie" crowd, up at 
Le Chalet, certainly are screams. One 
engineer was complaining at dinner last 
night that the " poilus " hogged everything. 
He said he had only just completed an 
"abri" for a water reservoir and had come 
up that morning to install the tank, when 
he found two infantrymen asleep in it with 
the place converted into a regular home — 
lamps, flooring, and beds. He went to 
where he was to install his 3 H.P. gas 
engine and pumps, and here were two 
more completely at home, and also sleep- 
ing. He said he didn't disturb them until 
he was ready to put his stuff in place. 

The regular Le Chalet cook has gone 
on "permission" and the meals are at- 

1 Howard B. Lines of Cambridge, Mass., graduate 
of Dartmouth. Since died. 



242 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

tended to by a chemist, who knows noth- 
ing whatever about cooking. They are 
something fierce. However, I bought some 
eggs and tomatoes, when I had a run 
down to Les Islettes, and cooked them for 
myself. 

They threw torpedoes at each other all 
day yesterday and the earth continually 
trembled. Some of them hold as much as 
a hundred kilos of dynamite and other high 
explosives. One doesn't hear them com- 
ing and the firing of the little "crapouil- 
lots" is scarcely more than a yacht can- 
non; but one can occasionally see them in 
the air, as they fly comparatively slowly. 
"Eclats" fell all around the "poste" con- 
tinually, yet the things were landing two 
or three hundred yards away. 

October 21. The Boches have been try- 
ing out a new type of shell around La 
Chalade lately. Kurtz saw one explode 
near the road. It blew a hole in the earth 
about twenty feet across and from that 
came dozens of smaller shells which ex- 
ploded over a radius of thirty or forty 
yards — a sort of huge shrapnel. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 243 

Four of the famous tanks came in near 
here the other day, and are to be used 
in a new offensive at Verdun, so it is said. 
They look like huge eggs with the cater- 
pillar strips going all the way round them, 
and they carry two "soixante-quinzes" 
as well as mitrailleuses. The French 
also have developed several types of air 
guns firing small torpedoes, varying from 
about the size of a hand-grenade to that of 
a good-sized bomb. They fool the Boches 
as to the direction from which they are 
coming and can therefore be operated al- 
most without interference. 

October 22. The Boches dropped a num- 
ber of shells on La Chalade Poste when I 
was there yesterday morning. A pane of 
glass above me, hit by an "eclat," fell on 
my head while I sat outside writing a letter. 
I don't know whether it is lucky or not 
to have that happen. For a moment I felt 
as if I were in one of those kaleidoscopes 
of childhood's happy days. About a buck- 
etful of colored glass came scattering all 
around. It is like getting religion thrust 
upon one, so to speak. Two shells came 



244 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

very close to the car, and a man standing 
near got an "eclat" in the casque which 
just saved his "nut." The casque was all 
crushed. Another fellow had a small bit 
cut his hand. It was rather nervous work 
for the half -hour they kept coming in, as 
there was no cave worthy of the name, 
so we just stood around and joked and 
hoped for the best. In the afternoon came 
a warning of a coming gas attack. The 
French had been giving the Boches hot 
work all day after the episode of the shell- 
ing of the abbey, and as the wind was 
right, the expectation was that the 
" Germs " would retaliate with gas. So we 
got out our masks and waited up until 
about 10 p.m., and as nothing happened 
we all went to bed. 

October 24. I arrived in Paris on "per- 
mission" with Roche. I got a "jolt" the 
moment I struck Rue Raynouard. The 
authorities had confiscated all souvenirs, 
dozens of different kinds of shells, shrap- 
nel, and the rest; and a complete set of 
Boche casques I got for father. Hard 
luck. 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 245 

October 26. I ran into Neilson Warden; 
also into "Bob" Glendinning and "Doc " 
McCloskey. The two last are over here 
arranging for the graduates of " Bob's" 
aviation school to be taken into the French 
army, without having to pass the long pre- 
liminary wait. He tells me they turned 
down Antelo Devereux and some others, 
who were fully competent. I also ran across 
Carson, 1 who used to be in Section 1 and 
then went to the Paris Squad. He returned 
to Chicago and tells the same old story 
of not being able to stand the banalities at 
home. He says he was passing along the 
street one day and his eye caught the sign 
"S.S. Rochambeau, sails September 2d." 
He went in and bought his ticket right off 
the reel. He is in the Paris Squad now, but 
wants to shift back to the Field Service. 

October 27. I spent a solid hour last eve- 
ning trying to get a taxi to get to E well's. 
Everything was busy. Paris is certainly 
livening up. Finally, about 8.15 I got 
hold of a fool Hollander or Belgian who 
got me entirely lost. So I never reached 
1 James L. Carson of Chicago. 



246 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

there. I had to write him a long apology 
which, of course, he won't believe. I ran 
into Parsons, all "dolled up" in his new 
aviation uniform. He's at Pau. The last 
time I saw him he was ditched with the 
old Daimler "camion," and Fenton and I 
went out to fix him up. I also saw Ay ton, 
who has gone into the Aviation Service, 
just lately. I called to see Sanders. He 's 
wonderfully cheerful, considering his face 
is going to be somewhat disfigured. They 
took forty small pieces of "eclat" out of 
his head in all; only three large ones, the 
rest dust. 

October 31. "Woody" and George End 
turned up to-day, and "Huts" came 
down from our place on his "permission." 
We had quite a reunion. Both "Woody" 
and End are going to rejoin, which helps. 
I had feared Woodworth would go into 
the Aviation Service. 

November 3. I am back at La Grange 
aux Bois, with a nasty cold. It's lucky 
there is nothing to do, anyway. I have 
just discovered that one of the members 
of the English Ambulance Corps, operat- 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 247 

ing in the Sector next to ours, is no less 
a person than Jerome K. Jerome, of 
"Three Men in a Boat" fame. 

An epidemic of boils and carbuncles 
seems to have struck Section 1. Old 
"Doc" Wilson had one cut out of his 
°rm: "Awfully awkward, don't ye know." 
Culby had a sort of Caesarian operation 
on his stomach; and Townsend has several 
where he sits. Tison has chronic indi- 
gestion, and the rest with varying degrees 
of colds and dysentery. A fine line of 
warriors we all are just now! 

November 4. We have moved from the 
barracks into rooms in the village where 
we can have at least dry feet and a modi- 
cum of warmth. The only trouble is that 
the rooms are relatively small, and one 
has to listen all day long to a lot of drivel 
from our war tacticians. A new man, 
Tyson, from Philadelphia, arrived to-day 
to take Newberry's place who is sick and 
going home. 

November 7. It is certainly interesting 
to hear the " Genie " discussing their work. 
One fellow told me what a bawling-out he 



248 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

got, when he was putting a temporary 
bridge on the Somme and let the water 
out of the canal-draw, to facilitate the 
driving of piles on the canal bottom. An 
irate Fusilier de Marine Captain and a lot 
of his men came up cursing like madmen. 
It appeared that his action had dropped 
the level of the canal all the way along a 
foot or more and the gun bores had en- 
tirely lost their aim, all elevations having 
thus been altered. He said a madder lot 
of men he never saw. Talking of their 
work here at Le Chalet, he said they often 
suddenly found themselves in the Boche 
diggings, but that both sides took good 
care not to start anything. He predicts, 
however, that there will be something 
doing here before long; all telephone wires 
are being buried and deep "abris" are 
being dug. He also says the Eightieth 
have been ordered to take certain positions 
near La Chalade. 

November 10. Nobody seems to know 
who is elected President and nobody cares 
very much here. The two candidates are 
regarded as about fifty-fifty. I had a funny 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 249 

experience this morning. I was taking the 
Medecin Major to Rarecourt, when the 
sentry at Les Islettes asked for the pass- 
word. We yelled "Jena," but did n't stop 
altogether — just slowed up. The sentry 
did n't like that, and slammed his bayonet 
straight at the "Doc," who was sitting 
beside me. The thing went clean through 
the woodwork of the car and wrenched out 
a piece the size of one's hand. The " Doc " 
got out and "laid into" that sentry in 
great style, took his name and number and 
turned it in to the Captain. Every now 
and then one hits up against some fool 
like that. 

Mrs. Audenried sent us up a complete 
outfit of fine fur-lined leather gauntlets; 
"bonne nouvelle," as it's getting mighty 
cold. They shelled La Chalade again 
to-day; Kurtz was on "poste" and every- 
body had to go to the cellar. 

November 12. The apotheosis of the fu- 
tility of human endeavor seems to me to 
be the work of the Sappers and "Genie" 
around here. A couple of days ago a French 
tunnel broke through into a Boche tunnel. 



250 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

Both were completely taken by surprise 
and simply withdrew and each blocked 
up his own tunnel. Then yesterday, the 
Boches thought they'd pull a stunt, so 
they opened up a small hole in the tempo- 
rary walls, sneaked in, and nabbed two 
French miners who were quietly sitting 
eating breakfast, and made them prisoners. 
The French got sore, and by way of re- 
taliation to-day blew up the whole bloody 
business. So now both sides have to start 
digging all over again. I suppose the main 
idea is to keep the men busy, to prevent 
their dying of ennui. 

November 13. Letters from Baylies and 
Imbrie. They must have had an awful 
time getting to Salonika. They were put 
in the hold with eight hundred Annamites, 
nearly all of whom were seasick. Sortwell 
was killed by a truck when they reached 
there; and George End, who was coming 
back to us, has sailed to take his place. 

November 14. I certainly take my hat 
off to the women of France. Nothing 
fazes them. Kurtz and I walked into Ste. 
Menehould yesterday and stopped in the 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 251 

"patisserie" for some cakes and port. 
While we were there the Boches began 
tossing "380's" into the town, trying for 
the railway station. The huge craters and 
terrific explosions shook the whole place; 
yet the little girl serving us cakes merely 
laughed and said, "The Boches are hating 
us very much to-day, n'est ce pas, Mes- 
sieurs!" The newspapers mentioned the 
incident this morning. The gun (an Aus- 
trian Skoda) was no less than thirty-six 
kilometers away ! They luckily did n't 
hurt anything, most of them landing in the 
field just about a hundred yards away 
from the station. One lit in the courtyard 
of the barracks on the hill and it looked 
like a sort of volcano in eruption, but that 
did no damage either. 

November 15. They shelled Ste. Mene- 
hould again to-day. One big fellow fell 
right in the center of the road in front 
of the station, knocking out all the win- 
dows for a block and wounding two sol- 
diers. The hospital has been closed and 
we now take the wounded to Villers- 
Deaucourt. 



252 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

November 18. Gay nor left to-day: nerves 
in bad shape. The new men keep piling 
in — about ten of them now, and more 
coming. Everybody was sorry to see Sam 
Jones go. He is entering the Aviation 
Service. Heavy ice everywhere to-day and 
a light fall of snow. Starting the car is 
some job these days. 

November 20. I took a walk with Sam 
Walker, and saw the great cemetery of 
the "Defenders of the Argonne " — a place 
on the side of the hill back of Ste. Mene- 
hould as large as Laurel Hill with most 
of the little wooden crosses marking 
trenches of bodies, not single mounds; next 
to it was a small graveyard with crosses 
over the mounds, but no names. These 
were what was left of those caught and 
shot as spies or as deserters or for self- 
mutilation in order to get away from the 
fighting. 

November %%. Some one is constantly 
having fun at the expense of P. and R., 
neither of whom knows much about cars. 
The other day R,. had a miss in one of his 
cylinders and could n't fix it. He went to 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 253 

Sponagle, who gravely asked him if he'd 
greased his fan belt. R. bit and spent an 
hour doing that! P. is very proud of a 
brass radiator, which, instead of painting 
the usual gray, he polishes assiduously 
with regular brass polish. Yesterday 
Wallace painted "Nuts" in large letters 
on it which nearly broke P.'s heart when he 
noticed it. Ever since he has been scraping 
and polishing away to reinstate it in its 
pristine glory. This morning somebody 
had hung the "Feuillee" sign on R.'s car 
while he was sitting in it writing, and he 
could n't understand why every passer- 
by roared with laughter at him. 

November 27. My last day in the War 
Zone, and I happened to draw the Fille 
Morte Poste! Sort of hard luck. The 
"Loot" offered to replace me, but it 
would n't have looked well before the new 
men, so here I am planted for twenty-four 
hours, and now I may miss the morning 
train to Paris, going down with Tison, 
Wallace, and Walker, all of whom are 
leaving for home. Culby is waiting for us 
in Paris. Roche leaves next week, so that 



254 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

poor old "Huts" will have practically a 
new Section to break in. The Boches are 
shooting "77" shrapnel over us and trying 
for the little railway back of us. General 
Bouchezcame up in his car to the" poste. " 
His chauffeur tells me that he just missed 
being killed yesterday and the glass in the 
car was broken by an "eclat." Great ex- 
citement was caused by a cavalry officer 
trying to cross a swamp down below us. 
He got bogged, and they spent an hour 
trying to get the horse out. The Boches, 
seeing the group of men, started shelling 
again, but failed to come within fifty yards 
of them. 

It's astonishing how everybody trusts 
everybody else. The Frenchmen give us 
money to buy them wine, tobacco, send 
telegrams, and so on; whereas we leave 
all our belongings lying around loose and 
they never touch them. Of course, it 
would n't be safe with the Senegalese, or 
on a highway where troops keep passing, 
but up in the lines, nobody touches any 
one else's things. 

November 28. Poor old "Huts" is still 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 255 

sick; but he got up out of bed to see us 
off. 

December 2. We had a great time in 
Paris. Andrew came to see us off at the 
train. 

December 3. The Chicago did n't start, 
of course, so that there was no movement 
of machinery and water to drown any 
noise, no matter how trifling. Most of the 
women on board are overworked Red 
Cross nurses and are in a pretty nerv- 
ous state. C. started the ball rolling by 
copying in his sleep the sound of the guns 
at Verdun. He did it so well that it sent 
one woman into hysterics and they had 
to wake him up. Then an aviator on 
twenty-one days' leave proceeded to have 
a nightmare. Then they tell me I called 
out in my sleep, "What, four new men 
up and only one going? For Heaven's 
sake!" They say it was quite distinct. 
Then a woman began copying the guns, 
entirely unconsciously. As the steward 
remarked, "C'etait rigolo." 

December 7. Three perfectly clear days, 
calm as a lake: no warships in sight. We 



256 AT THE FRONT IN A FLIVVER 

have a marine "100" on the afterdeck 
for Mr. Submarine. I met Vic White's 
sister: awfully jolly girl. 

December 8. Wireless warning received 
that another Boche cruiser is loose on 
the Atlantic. We saw what looked like 
a submarine in the distance. It may 
have been the Deutschland. We kept a 
gun trained on her, but we distanced her. 
Weather still perfect: wonderful sunsets 
and full moon ; more like yachting in the 
South Seas than on the Atlantic in mid- 
winter. 'T is so warm we don't wear coats 
or hats. I won ship hat-pool. 

December 9. Miss White won pool. Sea 
rough for first time. Our latest citation 
is before the Army and reads: — 



Copy of " Ordre ginSral No 189 " 

Groupement D.E. Stat- Major, au Quartier gSniral. 

S.C. No. 6611. Le 1 novembre, 1916. 

Le General Commandant le Groupement D.E. 
cite a Pordre du Corps d'Armee: 
Section Sanitaire Americaine N° 1, sous 
le commandement du Lieutenant Robert de 
Kersauson de Pennendreff et de l'officier 
americain Herbert Townsend, en aout et 



THE BATTLE FOR FLEURY 257 

septembre, 1916, a assure l'evacuation des 
blesses de trois Divisions successivement dans 
un secteur particulierement dangereux; a 
demande comme une faveur de conserver ce 
service, ou officiers et conducteurs on fait 
preuve du plus brillant courage et du plus com- 
plet devouement. 

(Signe) 

Le General Commandant le Groupement D.E. 

Mangin. 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



